Sudan Sentences Teddy Bear Teacher

Apparently the British teacher who inadvertently offended Islamic radicals in Sudan by allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Mohammed" will not be flogged.

If the lead sentences of this news story are correct, British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been convicted of inciting religious hatred and sentenced to 15 days in jail, followed by deportation.  (The news story is a bit garbled at the moment, containing the news of the sentence followed by a lengthy discussion of the teacher's anticipated defense.  Presumably the story is in the process of being updated to reflect the breaking news.)

By the way, one cannot help but note the speed of Sudanese "justice."  Arrested on Sunday, sentenced on Thursday.  Whew!  The American justice system is often far too slow, but going from arrest to trial and sentencing in four days seems a bit too speedy. 

In this case, however, the swiftness of Sudanese "justice" is probably for the best, since allowing this case to fester while Islamic radicals continued to lobby for the teacher to be punished severely would not exactly be conducive to her life and safety.

The latest story contains more details of the "offense":

Gibbons was teaching her pupils, who are around age 7, about animals, and asked one of them to bring in her teddy bear, according to Robert Boulos, the director for Unity High School.

Gibbons asked the students to pick names for it and they proposed Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad, and in September, the pupils voted to name it Muhammad, he said.

Each child was allowed to take the bear home on weekends and write a diary about what they did with it. The diary entries were collected in a book with the bear's picture on the cover, labeled, "My Name is Muhammad," he said. The bear itself was never labeled with the name, he added.

Gibbons was trying to teach the children writing skills, using a method shared by good teachers all around the world.  Her students picked the bear's name themselves, and a boy in the class said the teddy bear was named after him, not after Mohammed himself.

The punishment of 15 days in jail and deportation is harsh, but not as harsh as the 40 lashes the woman originally faced.

Although Sudan gets some credit for not punishing this teacher as mercilessly as it often does in such cases, its punishment is still the kind that harms everyone involved. 

The children are harmed by the sudden and punitive loss of an excellent teacher.  The harm to the teacher is self-evident.  Meanwhile, Sudan looks ridiculous for having treated an inadvertent slight in such a draconian manner.  Sudan will have a very hard time attracting additional teachers of similar caliber from the West.  Indeed, professionals of all kinds are even more likely to avoid Sudan like the plague it has become, if they value their own freedom and safety.  So for its efforts Sudan will earn less educated children, greater isolation, and a weaker economy.  Good going, Sudan. 

Once again Sudan is demonstrating that building and improving things is difficult, but destroying things is easy.  It's a secret shared by all terrorists.

Update 1:  This AP story corrects the earlier report to state that the teacher was convicted of the lesser charge of insulting Islam, not of inciting religious hatred.  It's certainly appropriate that there was on conviction for inciting religious hatred.  If you want to find an example of someone inciting religious hatred, you'd have to look at the other side -- the prosecutors and hardliners who egged them on in pursing this case.  When you jail and deport a woman for accidentally insulting your faith, you are certainly stoking the fires of religious hatred.

Update 2:  A CNN report is here.