T1B

Calls in Sudan for execution of Briton
By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer
4 minutes ago

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad."

In response to the demonstration, teacher Gillian Gibbons was moved from the women's prison near Khartoum to a secret location for her safety, her lawyer said.

In Britain, Gibbons' son, John, told The Associated Press that her mother was "holding up well" and she made an appeal for tolerance.

"One of the things my mum said today was that 'I don't want any resentment towards Muslim people,'" John Gibbons said, relaying part of a telephone conversation with her.

The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.

They massed in central Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed. They did not try to stop the rally, which lasted about an hour.

"Shame, shame on the U.K.," protesters chanted.

They called for Gibbons' execution, saying, "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad."

Gibbons' chief lawyer, Kamal al-Gizouli, said she was moved from the prison for her safety for the final days of her sentence.

"They moved this lady from the prison department to put her in other hands and in other places to cover her and wait until she completes her imprisonment period," he said, adding that she was in good health.

"They want, by hook or by crook, to complete these nine days without any difficulties, which would have an impact on their foreign relationship," he said.

Several hundred protesters, not openly carrying weapons, marched from the square to Unity High School, about a mile away, where Gibbons worked. They chanted slogans outside the school, which is closed and under heavy security, then headed toward the nearby British Embassy. They were stopped by security forces two blocks away from the embassy.

The protest arose despite vows by Sudanese security officials the day before, during Gibbons' trial, that threatened demonstrations after Friday prayers would not take place. Some of the protesters carried green banners with the name of the Society for Support of the Prophet Muhammad, a previously unknown group.

Many protesters carried clubs, knives and axes — but not automatic weapons, which some have brandished at past government-condoned demonstrations. That suggested Friday's rally was not organized by the government.

A Muslim cleric at Khartoum's main Martyrs Mosque denounced Gibbons during one sermon, saying she intentionally insulted Islam. He did not call for protests, however.

"Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan. But we welcome imprisonment and expulsion," the cleric, Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, a well-known hard-liner, told worshippers.

"This an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad," he said.

Britain, meanwhile, pursued diplomatic moves to free Gibbons. Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke with her family to convey his regret, his spokeswoman said.

"He set out his concern and the fact that we were doing all we could to secure her release," spokeswoman Emily Hands told reporters.

The Foreign Office said consular staff had visited Gibbons in prison, and she was in good health.

Officials said Lord Ahmed, a Muslim Labour peer, would travel to Sudan to try to secure Gibbons' release. The Foreign Office said the trip was a private initiative.

In Washington, the U.S. government backed Britain's diplomatic efforts.

"We are very supportive of the British government. They are working to get their citizen back," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

"There is a shared assessment that the punishment that has been imposed on this woman is in every way excessive, even though it has been reduced," he said. "Quite clearly there is an overreaction of the individuals involved in the prosecution of this case."

Most Britons expressed shock at the verdict by a court in Khartoum, alongside hope it would not raise tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain.

"One of the good things is the U.K. Muslims who've condemned the charge as completely out of proportion," said Paul Wishart, 37, a student in London.

"In the past, people have been a bit upset when different atrocities have happened and there hasn't been much voice in the U.K. Islamic population, whereas with this, they've quickly condemned it."

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, accused the Sudanese authorities of "gross overreaction."

"This case should have required only simple common sense to resolve. It is unfortunate that the Sudanese authorities were found wanting in this most basic of qualities," he said.

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, a political advocacy group, said the prosecution was "abominable and defies common sense."

The Federation of Student Islamic Societies, which represents 90,000 Muslim students in Britain and Ireland, called on Sudan's government to free Gibbons, saying she had not meant to cause offense.

"We are deeply concerned that the verdict to jail a schoolteacher due to what's likely to be an innocent mistake is gravely disproportionate," said the group's president, Ali Alhadithi.

The Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim youth organization, said Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir should pardon the teacher.

"The Ramadhan Foundation is disappointed and horrified by the conviction of Gillian Gibbons in Sudan," said spokesman Mohammed Shafiq.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, said Gibbons' prosecution and conviction was "an absurdly disproportionate response to what is at worst a cultural faux pas."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband summoned the Sudanese ambassador late Thursday to express Britain's disappointment with the verdict. The Foreign Office said Britain would continue diplomatic efforts to achieve "a swift resolution" to the crisis.

Gibbons was arrested Sunday after another staff member at the school complained that she had allowed her 7-year-old students to name a teddy bear Muhammad. Giving the name of the Muslim prophet to an animal or a toy could be considered insulting.

The case put Sudan's government in an embarrassing position — facing the anger of Britain on one side and potential trouble from powerful Islamic hard-liners on the other. Many saw the 15-day sentence as an attempt to appease both sides.

In The Times, columnist Bronwen Maddox said the verdict was "something of a fudge ... designed to give a nod to British reproof but also to appease the street."

Britain's response — applying diplomatic pressure while extolling ties with Sudan and affirming respect for Islam — had produced mixed results, British commentators concluded.

In an editorial, The Daily Telegraph said Miliband "has tiptoed around the case, avoiding a threat to cut aid and asserting that respect for Islam runs deep in Britain. Given that much of the government's financial support goes to the wretched refugees in Darfur and neighboring Chad, Mr. Miliband's caution is understandable."

Now, however, the newspaper said, Britain should recall its ambassador in Khartoum and impose sanctions on the Sudanese regime.

mvscal wrote:

Mikey wrote:'I don't want any resentment towards Muslim people,'

Moron.

Martyred wrote:This is an outrage!

Why, you should immediately invade their country, squander billions of dollars in "re-construction" and have your kids spill their
intestines on Sudanese soil.

That'll teach 'em.

Mikey wrote: We should leave them alone and let them kill each other and/or starve to death.

Mikey wrote:As a matter of fact they will soon be following him on jihad.

Mikey wrote:

Martyred wrote:This is an outrage!

Why, you should immediately invade their country, squander billions of dollars in "re-construction" and have your kids spill their
intestines on Sudanese soil.

That'll teach 'em.

Not really.

We should leave them alone and let them kill each other and/or starve to death.

Wolfman wrote:Have they set a date yet for stoning the teddy bear?

mvscal wrote:I'm sure Muslim nutters care.

warren wrote:

Mikey wrote:

Martyred wrote:This is an outrage!

Why, you should immediately invade their country, squander billions of dollars in "re-construction" and have your kids spill their
intestines on Sudanese soil.

That'll teach 'em.

Not really.

We should leave them alone and let them kill each other and/or starve to death.

Maybe we should just give them flying lessons and GPS coordinates and see what happens. Oh, and enriched uranium wouldn't hurt either.

Mikey wrote:

warren wrote:

Mikey wrote: Not really.

We should leave them alone and let them kill each other and/or starve to death.

Maybe we should just give them flying lessons and GPS coordinates and see what happens. Oh, and enriched uranium wouldn't hurt either.

So warren, you think we should go to Sudan and kill all the Muslims because they arrested a Brit schoolteacher on ridiculous charges and then took to the streets with death to the English signs? They don't even have any oil, you know. Seriously warren you're as much of a nutcase as they are. I think you've been on vacation too long. You need to get back on your meds before you become truly dangerous.

warren wrote: we might as well save them the suffering in Darfur and nuke the fucking sub human trash before they export their idiocy over this way.

Dr_Phibes wrote:

warren wrote: we might as well save them the suffering in Darfur and nuke the fucking sub human trash before they export their idiocy over this way.

A more informed way of looking at the situation would be this - The Sudanese government does a massive amount of business with the Chinese and none with the west as they are under embargo.

What's more likely is that the Sudenese government is playing a tit-for-tat game with the British government for the position they've adopted on Darfur.

She'll be released in fifteen days and a hair on her pretty little head won't be harmed.

The sentence wouldn't have been any different if she ran out in the street and kicked someone in the nuts for no reason at all.

Articles like that, framed as it is - are nothing more than wank material for kikes, Christian whack-jobs and liberal social-democrats.

Mister Bushice wrote: Except of course for the pictures of members of the "religion of peace" marching and calling for destruction, death and violence as a solution.

There is that.

Dr_Phibes wrote:A more informed way of looking at the situation would be this - The Sudanese government does a massive amount of business with the Chinese and none with the west as they are under embargo.

GDP Rank
172 Sudan $ 2,400 2006 est.
GDP Growth Rate
25 Sudan 9.30 2006 est. when your GDP is so fucking low and you are beginning to grow your economy you'll rank well for growth, but it doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot looking at the bog picture.
Exports: $5.657 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Exports - commodities: oil and petroleum products; cotton, sesame, livestock, groundnuts, gum arabic, sugar
Exports - partners: Japan 48%, China 31%, South Korea 3.8% (2006)
Imports: $7.105 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Imports - commodities: foodstuffs, manufactured goods, refinery and transport equipment, medicines and chemicals, textiles, wheat
Imports - partners: China 17.7%, Saudi Arabia 9%, UAE 5.6%, Egypt 5.2%, Germany 5.1%, India 4.5% (2006)
Economic aid - recipient: $1.829 billion (2005)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $1.66 billion (2006 est.)
Debt - external: $28.2 billion (2006 est.)

Dr_Phibes wrote:Articles like that, framed as it is - are nothing more than wank material for kikes, Christian whack-jobs and liberal social-democrats.

mvscal wrote:

Mikey wrote:They don't even have any oil, you know.

Actually they have a great deal of oil. Why do you suppose China has been running interference for them at the UN?

Mikey wrote:They just need some help digging a hole deep enough to get at it.

Mikey wrote: you think we should go to Sudan and kill all the Muslims because they arrested a Brit schoolteacher on ridiculous charges and then took to the streets with death to the English signs? .

smackaholic wrote:
gawd what a pathetic little cunt you are.

The Whistle Is Screaming wrote: If by "more informed" you mean - "I don't really know what I'm talking about," then yes, you can look at it that way.

Dr_Phibes wrote: Hang on, I know quite a bit about it. I have an interest in the Communist Party Of China and the direction they're heading in.

They've abandoned their ideology and the country requires resources for economic growth and they've gone to Africa to get it. In the Sudan, their are massive reserves that western companies haven't bothered to retrieve, the investment is too much and country is politically unstable. The Chinese don't care, they're going in and they're controlling the entire extraction process from getting it out of the ground to getting it back to China in exchange for massive infrastructure projects - and it's happening all over Africa.

The've adopted a strict non-intervention policy which involves doing business with the Sudanese government (not a paticularly likable bunch) who are involved in a civil war with among others, the SLA (also an unlikable bunch) who get a fat pile of cash from the U.S.

When you actually bother to learn who the players are and where they're getting their support, it's quite easy to become a bit cynical about the endless stream of horseshite from the 'hate our freedom, they all want to kill us, quick someone patrol our ports' crowd. Wherever strategic/economic interests become involved, 'Al Queda' seems to be popping up and it's laughable.

Dr_Phibes wrote:Do yourself a favour and quit trawling You-Tube for talking Palistinian mice and try viewing things from a larger perspective, yeah?.

The Whistle Is Screaming wrote: Hold on Dr_Sham, you made a wild ass claim about how China is doing "massive" amounts of business with Sudan & the "West" isn't. I post the data that supports that Sudan doesn't do anything "massive" when it comes to the global economy and that their primary Export partner is Japan while China accounts for less than 20% of Sudans imports.

mvscal wrote:
We have more than enough nerve gas to address the issue, so lets get cracking. Genocide is good for the environment.

mvscal wrote:

Dr_Phibes wrote:So really, there is no real case against her.

I'm sure Muslim nutters care.

Mikey wrote:

Martyred wrote:This is an outrage!

Why, you should immediately invade their country, squander billions of dollars in "re-construction" and have your kids spill their
intestines on Sudanese soil.

That'll teach 'em.

Not really.

We should leave them alone and let them kill each other and/or starve to death.

Perk wrote:Why do you hate Hallibur....errrr....freedom?

The Whistle Is Screaming wrote:

Dr_Phibes wrote:Articles like that, framed as it is - are nothing more than wank material for kikes, Christian whack-jobs and liberal social-democrats.

I can't speak for "Christian whack-jobs and liberal social-democrats," but I can tell that kikes prefer porn for wank material.

Of course I'm not surprised you're wrong about something so simple and obvious.

Mikey wrote: We should leave them alone and let them kill each other and/or starve to death.

Terry in Crapchester wrote: So do "liberal social-democrats," fwiw. Or at least, this one does.

Dinsdale wrote:Socialism is theft, plain and simple.