Free Gillian Gibbons!

The Liverpool teacher accused of "insulting religion" by running a poll amongst her very young pupils to name a teddy and accepting their suggestion of "Muhammad" has been sentenced to 15 days in jail by a Sudanese court.

This is better than the lashes, fine and/or six months in jail we were led to believe might be given out, but still a disgraceful attack on an innocent teacher, doing no more than what many primary school teachers do in Britain every week. The innocence of what happened shows up the injustice of what has happened. The most the teacher could be accused of would be a lack of cultural awareness, surely not a crime.

We should not allow this case to be used by extremists who want to whip up communal tensions. It seems clear that there are political axes being ground and Gillian's case could well be being used as a pawn in a political/psychological and propaganda battle. She should be released and allowed to return to England as soon as she wishes.

Here is the Amnesty International 2007 report on Sudan.