Breaking: Teacher convicted to jail for naming teddy bear "Muhammad"

Unbelievable, they went and did it:

A Sudanese court convicted a British teacher Thursday of insulting Islam for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced her to 15 days in prison, avoiding a heavier punishment of 40 lashes. The teacher wept in court, insisting she never meant to offend.

The sentence and quick seven-hour trial were aimed at swiftly resolving the case, which had 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.

The defense said the case was sparked by a school secretary with a grudge. But it escalated as Muslim clerics sought to drum up public outrage against what it called a Western plot to insult Islam's Prophet Muhammad and demanding Gibbons be punished.

... The teacher, Gillian Gibbons, "was in tears" when she testified in court Thursday, a member of her defense team, Abdel-Khaliq Abdallah, told The Associated Press.

... Gibbons, 54, was found guilty of "insulting the faith of Muslims" and sentenced to 15 days in jail, followed by deportation, said Ali Mohammed Ajab, a human rights lawyer on the defense team. The charge is a lesser offense in the article of the criminal code under which she was tried, which includes several possible charges.

Prosecutors had pressed for conviction on a heavier charge under the same article — inciting religious hatred, which carries a punishment of up to 40 lashes, six months in prison and a fine.

What prompted this sentence?

The case began with a classroom project on animals in September at the private school, which has 750 students from elementary to high school levels, most from wealthy Sudanese Muslim families.

Gibbons had one of her 7-year-old students bring in a teddy bear, then asked the class to name it and they chose the name Muhammad.

Each student then took the teddy bear home to write a diary entry about it, and the entries were compiled into a book with the bear's picture on the cover, titled "My Name is Muhammad," Boulos said.

I think the direct blame for this poor British schoolteacher's mistreatment rests on the shoulders of the radical Muslim clerics who are inciting hatred against her. Still, the article makes the point that "the north of Sudan bases its legal code on Islamic law", so there are also broader structures in play here that share in some of the guilt.

When the phrase "It's just a teddy bear" doesn't resolve the situation, I would say we have a serious problem.