And we're handing out teddy bears as parting gifts

Good news: "A British school teacher jailed in Sudan for two weeks after allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was freed Monday following a pardon by the Sudanese president."

Good that the Sudanese leadership finally saw the light. I suspect they figured they'd done enough to pacify the radical crazies among them.

Some responses to the radical Islam/Sudan/teddy bear incident

Good roundup here. Note especially: first, remember, the victim here is a British woman. So, National Organization of Women, where art thou? "When asked by FOX News for a comment about the situation, a National Organization for Women spokeswoman said they were "not putting out a statement or taking a position."

And then there was Whoopi Goldberg's blame-the-victim stance on "The View":
"WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You’d think if you’re going overseas, I mean, we had this discussion yesterday about people coming to America and learning the customs and knowing what is cool, and what isn’t cool. But I find that maybe we are not- and I say we just as European and American, we’re not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places. It’s just one of the reasons we’re called the ugly Americans."

Well, but of course, there is really no law or custom on what you can and cannot name teddy bears in the Sudan...and in any case, it wasn't this school teacher who named this bear anything! It was a presumably Muslim child in her class who named him!!

Wow.

Naming teddy bears Muhammad

A British teacher in the Sudan discovers the joys of radical Islam: "British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been convicted of inciting religious hatred for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan, one of her defense lawyers said Thursday. "The judge found Gillian Gibbons guilty and sentenced her to 15 days jail and deportation," said Ali Mohammed Hajab, a member of her defense team. Gibbons, 54, was arrested Sunday after complaints to the Education Ministry that she had insulted Prophet Muhammad, the most revered figure in Islam, by applying his name to a toy animal."

I suppose the Sudanese expect us to be grateful that she was not given 40 lashes.
What's really going on here? The sentence was slightly moderated to appease the British. But she was convicted in the first place in order for Sudan's leader to continue to burnish his Muslim credentials, and to appease Muslim radicals in the country who apparently threatened demonstrations. There was even fear for the teacher's life.