A Troublesome Teddy...

In Khartoum, Sudan, Ms. Gillian Gibbons was recently arrested for the horrid crime of naming her class teddy bear Mohammad.  She is a teacher of 6 and 7 year olds, and for a class project, each student was to take home the teddy bear for a day and record what they did together in a diary that Ms. Gibbons had created. 

On the front cover of the diary was a picture of the teddy bear.  Underneath the bear, Ms. Gibbons wrote, "My name is Mohammad."  This is why she was arrested.  In Sudan, it is strictly against the law to make an image and label it Mohammad because Mohammad is the prophet in the religion of Islam.  The problem was, Ms.Gibbions did not know of this law beacause she was from the United Kingdom.

So our critical question is was it fair to arrest Ms. Gibbons for something that she was unaware that she was doing? 

Here's what we think:

Download blurbcast_18_the_troublesome_teddy.mp3

So what do you think?  Should Ms. Gibbons have been arrested for her crime, or is being from another country her built in excuse in this situation?

Leave us a comment to share your thinking and join us again soon on The Blurb.

Signed,

Cybergirl and Chicken Chaser

Image retrieved from http://www.shinyshiny.tv/teddy%20bear%201.jpg on December 7, 2007.

Comments

[Skip Rope]

I agree with Cyber girl in that it is not fair for her to be arrested for this incident.

The teachers intentions were not malicious when she began this class project of the bear. The teacher did not name this bear; the students named the bear after the most popular kid in the class.

Fellow teachers and parents did not complain about the Bears name.

In researching Muhammed he tells his followers to be forgiving. It was a oversight by the teacher that did not hurt anyone. I imagine that the teacher will be a bit more sensitive and aware of the customs in her new hometown.

Skip Rope.

--- I have created a new T-Shirt for this teacher.

W.W.M.D.?

[Minnie Mouse]

Yo what up Bam Bam and NEW blurbers. I just wanted to ask if yall are still trackin' the visits yall get and where I can see where they are from. Well I miss you Bam Bam. Yall new Blurbers are doing OKAY but lets see if yall can be as good as we where last year. So BRING IT ON new blurbers. I will see yall soon.
ALSO the real reason I wnated to make this post was to say that this is so wrong. She is a school teacher from the UK and knew nothing about the law. So how is she responisible???

Minnie Mouse-- The year of the orignal blurbers

[Crazy Steve]

I think she should not be arrested because she did not know the law so this was not fair. I think she should have known some of the laws that could her arrested but this was ridiculous.

[banna anna]

I think it wasn't fair to arrest Ms,Gibbens for the crime. She was just trying to have fun with her class.

[abbi]

In class i am learning about the culture of the islamic ways in course of the religion known by the believers 'muslims'. In many ways such a small numbers of cases to do with muslims seem to have spread on that ALL muslims must be like them. for example, to the english, americans have been given the image of polluting, obese lazy humans [no offense]. Muslms may be known as quite suicidal, strapping bombs to themselves and not just killing themselves, but others to with families they would never see again. But Allah and the word of their bible tells them to give their life up to the word of god and to be open minded and kind to others,like they are your family.
To put this more clear, these muslims were not kind to Ms. Gibbions. the way they had her jailed and begged for her death was barbaric, and not they way Allah would of aproved. This was only a teddy and the thought that she was not even aware of the fact that she was not to do what she did as disgraceful. Not that the teacher had thought up the name, but the class did.

by: Abbi S - H
year: 8