Muhammad' teddy teacher arrested

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7112929.stm

She is in court today at 2pm.

Any thoughts on this developing story?

OOOOOOOOHHHHH YESSSSSSS i have a view for a change

I think the British Government should be making a very strong stand - release this british citzen or else!
When the followers of muhasmmed come to Britain they are always allowed to voice their beliefs whereever they want and are given religious freedom.
The government should be pointing out that this woman is from a "chritian" country and so doesn't believe in mohamed, to hee mohamed is simply a name therefore she meant no offense, if they want to take offence then that is THEIR choice and Britain will not stand by whilst a British citzen is persecuted for not believing in their religion. If they want to continue down this line then Britain should consider throwing all followeers of mohamed out of Britain to protect them from being offended whilst in this country.
As far as i am concerned this woman hasn't physicaly hurt, harmed or influenced anyone in any way and is therefore an inocent. She has been detained/kidnapped by a foreign country and in my mind that means by arresting her THEY are offending me and my Country.
Good job i'm not PM or i'd have every sudanese in Britain detained until my fellow Brit is released

(i do concede that she was a bit thoughtless - but that isn't a crime in my books - false imprisonment however is)

as for "with insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs" isn't that what happens on a daily basis up and down this country in mosques like findsbury?
When i'm refered to as an infidel - that is exactly what they are doing to me - i don't believe that because i don't believe in a so called prophet that my life is worthless - that insults my beliefs that ALL life is precious, calling for people to be flogged or beheaded for not respecting a prophet or "religion" which seems to condone violence and murder disrespects my beliefs that all life is precious and failing to defend a british subjects rights to free speech after the freedom ggiven to those who are complaining now in our country is the biggest insult of the lot- so If this government doesn't stand up and let Sudan know that by detaining this woman they are offending this country IMO this government doesn't deserve to say it protects the people
1 Warning release our citizen - then send in the SAS - they can discuss diplomatic relations after our citizen is freed - and i'm pretty sure any break down in relations after that would hurt Sudan more than Britain so is unlikely to occur.Britain is in a strong position here and so doesn't need to sacrifice this lady for the sake of diplomacy.
its a name - If i was a God/Prophet ( i know , i know some of you think i am - but i'm not i can assure you ) i'd rather a cuddly teddy bear was named after me than ........well al fayed?,

Also it says she allowed rather than instructed the children too - surely this is more a case of the children naming a "loved" bear after something important to them rather than as an insult - andif it is percieved as insulting then surely the parental influence would have to be stronger than that of a teacher so maybe the parrents should also be blamed for allowing their children to even have the idea.

And on that note i'm off to feed my pet pig mohamed! He's feeling suicidal since his brother Jesus and my turkey (gordon) were sacrficed in preparation for Christmas

ok obviously i was being facecious - i don't condone kicking out all mohamed followers any more than i condone them putting her in jail for 15 days, but i do question your when in rome - in that case veils should be removed - it has long been accepted in britain that anything that partially covers the face is NOT acceptable - thats why bikers have been forced to remove helmets when entering garages banks etc.. Or what about all the schools that have banned assemblies inb case they offend other religeons (when in rome?) or the places that have banned England flags when they are playing football or rugby - for fear of upsetting minorities (when in Rome) Also it wasn't the woman who named the teddy bear it was the kids themselves, she just didn't stop them.
My point however ois more aimed at the government - this is, in the eyes of just about everyone apart from mohamed followers(tho i do hear that even a lot of mohamed followers actually agree that this is just pathetic)an inocent women being detained unlawfuly and the government should be demanding her release - any crimne against a british citizen is a crime against britain.
Lets face it most of us suspect had it been a sudanese jailed in britain for calling a teddy bear jesus then we would have been subject to another spate of terorist bombings or marches on the streets demanding the beheading of gordon Brown.
As a "christian" i could claim everytime the Quran is read it insults my religion by calling Jesus a prophet - He is the Son of God - so by the when in Rome standard that would put a lot of people in British Jails.
But since you've made it clear that in your opinion this Lady deserves to be put in Jail for allowing children to call a teddy bear what they want i guess we'll have to agree to differ - because it will always be in my opinion a woman who is being illegaly detained and as such makes me even more unsympathetic towards any mohamed followers claims. Tho it does confirm my belief that mohamed can't be that important if his followers feel a woman calling a bear are a threat worth imprisoning someone for.
Luckily for us i guess this country isn't full of mindless fanatics as it certainy appears the sudan is.
i think i'm quite a ballancxed person normally and unfortunately for any "inocent "muslims all i see are muslims murdering ,and now falsely imprisoning innocent people in the name of their religion and i wonder how people can even consider following such an apparently oppresive and cruel faith.
In fact to be truthful - i am Not religious at all but i find myself more and more viewing any muslims as a potential enemy rather than friend - and this isn't because i'm a biggot but because of all the inocent people being killed maimed or imprisoned in the name of a so called man of God called mohamed. This woman being jailed for something as pathetic as allowing muslim children to name a bear mohamed simply enforces my belief that they are unreasonable and therefore unstable and a very real threat to my security - you can call me whatever you like (unlike me -you) but i blame my mistrust on muslims themselves not me - after all i have no problem with budhists,sieks,shintoist,taoist, black,chinese,otr any other groups but muslims are IMO warped and a very real threat - after all any group that views me as valueless because i don't follow an opressive religion can hardly be a safe bet to trust!
I Mean no individual any personal insult but am quite prepared to offend if my views offend because they are differentjust as Mohamed allows his followers to murder inocent people in the name of jihad , my faith in me and humanity allows me to say thoise involved in jihad are murdering cowardly scum and just as muslims feel it ok to call me an infidel i feel no guilt in calling mohamed a muppet as an infidel i may be worthless to a muslim but equally as a so called infidel how can i give mohamed respect when so many inocents are killed or illegaly detained in his name.
Respect to you for defending your faith but i have no respect for your religion nor your so called prophet.
Finally i hope our conflict of interests regarding faith doesn't affect our friendship on this forum since i do respect you views on lots of other issues just not on this - i fail to see how allowing children to name a teddybear can justify a person's physical health being put at risk!

ok so its not the most inteligent of papers but i see from aall the comments in the sun that i am not in the minority by condemning sudan and the muslim fanatics over this- most seem to agree that far from it being the Lady not bein roman enough it is the narrow mindedness and selfishness of the muslims that appears to be bein blamed.
Some interesting points made tho and i quote

"i find little to admire about a faith that demanded 40 lashes for a teacher allowing .......
how can Muslim leaders ever expect us to understand their religion when they dish out such barbaric punishments?"


or "we are told Islam is a peacful religion which doesn't condone violence of any sort - yet there are far too many cases like Gillians which totaly contradict these claims"

or

"Gillian may have been guilty of silliness but she obviously meant no offence. Her Islamic persecutors, on the other hand are guilty of stupidity,and hatred of anything contrary to their bigoted, female-hating religion."

or
"Sudan is devastated by civil war, poverty and starvation" (proof in my eyes that muslim states really don't work) "outside agencies" (many christian!) " pump billions into the country to ease its problems. Its time to look at what type of regime they are propping up"

or

" .... its time this country stood up for the rights of its people and refuse to be railroaded by a (muslim) state that needs dragging into the 21st century!"

or

" ..... once again their actions contradict their teachings"



i also note that she was lucky she wasn't preaching christianity nor wearing trousers as under Sharia Law as laid down in the qu'ran she would have been executed.


its kind of hard to disagree with those sentiments IMO and i also wonder how fair the muslims would deem it if Britain adopted the same policy to outside religions as the Muslim states do in theirs.
I often wonder why, if, Muslims are so sure of their core beliefs do they feel so threatend by any others , doesn't sound like safe in the knowledge of their God - more so insecure they have to kill anyone who may sow the seeds of doubt.

Not all muslims are cowardly murderers , nor bigoted bullies, nor narrow minded persecutors but unfortunately for those few recent history shows and continues to show that there are an awful lot about, and they are a real threat to the safety of the vast majority of us, 9/11 , 7/7 , this teacher to name but a few so the sooner the peaceful Muslims stop blaming everyone else, trying to argue they are the persecuted , and condemn the true problem the murdering cowards within the Muslim Faith the sooner they will get a sympathetic ear IMO.

Its siumple to me - the minute you try to blame the teacher in this case or fail to condone the actions of the cowardly muslim murderers you are going to be tarred with the same brush if only as a safety precaution to protect myself and as long as the problem is caused by Muslims i'm afraid it down to muslims to prove they aren't a threat. Accusing people like me of religious hatred or racial hatred is frankly laughable comming from people who follows a religion that actually activly encourages the very same and is responsible for the murder of thousands of totaly inocent people (half the people in the twin towers probably didn't even know who the taliban were).
So my mistrust of Muslims i'm afraid stays (rightly or wrongly) since i don't see why i should risk my life and trust when most,even if they aren't murdering people , still can't condemn those that are wrong purely because they aren't infidels. Trust has to be earned and i see little evidence of even an attempt to earn it!

Of course you can’t call for deporting muslims or tarnishing millions of peace loving people with the same brush. This would be as bad a crime as the acts carried out by the extremist minority.

However, I think our government should should be a tough as possible and put as much pressure that it can on the Sudanese.

A great quote I found about this case:

http://www.sudanesethinker.com/

Once upon a time Christianity went through a very dark period. Now it seems some Islamic hardliners are doing bad things in the name of their religion. Today there was a protest in Sudan demanding a tougher sentence, some even calling for her execution. Sudan’s prisons are supposed to be amongst the worse in the world. She has just been moved to another prison ‘for her own safety’. This women was their to help their children.

I know it’s just the the Sudanese court’s interpretation, but how can any religion or God be so intolerant that they would want to harm a person for such an act? Wouldn’t a God show tolerance. All over a teddy bear’s name! If it wasn’t so scary it would be funny. Reminds my of a scene from the great Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

When such bad things are done in the name of religion, it begs the question, would the world be better off without it? I don’t like religion in politics. It’s all too black and white, no middle ground or room for compromise. If God tells you it’s the right thing to go to war in Iraq, and you believe in God then that’s what you to. Scary.

Unless she’s released immediately, the government should stop giving any more tax payers money in aid to Sudan. Maybe their God will take care off them instead - after all, they’re model followers.

Then again, it won’t be the people at the top in power that will be affected by such at stance. No, they’ll still eat well. As usual it will be the most needy. Will the powers that be care? Probably not. As long as they’re seen to be defending their religion - the tool they’re using to control their people.

I feel really sorry for the millions of normal Muslims that get tarnished by such events. Try to imagine how they feel, seeing this madness and knowing how the ignorant minority will judge them.

far better put than my ramblings .... tho i will add
"Of course you can’t call for deporting muslims or tarnishing millions of peace loving people with the same brush. This would be as bad a crime as the acts carried out by the extremist minority." as would defending or failing to condone that minority.

and i'll leave it at that i don't want to upset anyone more than i already may have

Sorry about my ramblings too. I just find it so shocking watching the news and seeing these people calling for her to be shot etc.

How can religion over-ride decent humanity. Shouldn't religion be there to make the world a better place. Not encourage pain and suffering. It's madness.

It's not just Islam by any means. You've also got the pope telling his flock that if you use a condom it's a sin. Africa has it's fastest growing membership. Yet Africa is suffering so badly from HIV and aids. In one speech the Pope could put paid to much of this suffering. This is also madness.

But I think I've just gone off on a tangent.

we should start a "put the world to rights forum " just for people like us to ramble (and rant) on

Will do.

Oh, there's some great discussion on Facebook about this subject. Some good campaigns growing.

Let's see if Milliband can earn his money.