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British officials arrive in Sudan to plea for teacher

Sudanese demonstrators chant slogans at a protest against the verdict handed down to a British teacher accused of insulting Islam, in Khartoum on Friday. PHOTO: AFP

Two Muslim members of Britain's House of Lords were in Khartoum yesterday to seek the release of 54-year-old Gillian Gibbons.

Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi, from the upper house of Britain's parliament, were to meet with Sudanese officials in a bid to free Gibbons, who was jailed for 15 days on Thursday for insulting religion.

"They're on a private visit with the [Sudanese] government," a British embassy spokesman said. "We welcome any efforts to help in the case, but we're not involved in their program."

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and swords and beating drums, burned pictures of a British teacher on Friday and demanded her execution for insulting Islam by letting her students name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Sudan's Islamic government, which has long whipped up anti-Western, Muslim hard-line sentiment at home, was balancing between fueling outrage over the case of Gibbons and containing it.

Khartoum does not want to seriously damage ties with Britain, but the show of anger underlines its stance that Sudanese oppose Western interference, lawyers and political foes said. The uproar comes as the UN is accusing Sudan of dragging its feet on the deployment of peacekeepers in the war-torn Darfur region.

Many in the protesting crowd shouted ``Kill her! Kill her by firing squad!''

In response to the rally in central Khartoum, Gibbons was moved from the prison across the Nile in Oumdurman to a secret location, her chief lawyer Kamal al-Gizouli said. He said he visited her there to discuss her conviction.

Gibbons could have faced a maximum sentence of 40 lashes, six months in jail and a fine.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called in the Sudanese ambassador to London twice for talks on the issue, underlining that Gibbons' actions were the result of an "innocent misunderstanding."

Gibbons spoke on Friday with her son John and daughter Jessica in Britain by telephone.

"One of the things my mum said today was that I don't want any resentment towards Muslims," the son said. "She's holding up quite well."

Despite the fervor of the protest, the rest of Khartoum was quiet. The rally was far smaller than protests held in February last year with government backing after European newspapers ran caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, suggesting popular anger over Gibbons did not run as deep.

In their mosque sermons on Friday, several Muslim clerics harshly denounced Gibbons, saying she had intentionally insulted the prophet, but they did not call for protests.

Still, after prayers, several thousand people converged on Khartoum's Martyrs Square, near the presidential palace, and began calling for Gibbons' execution. Many seemed to be from Sufi groups, religious sects that emphasize reverence for the prophet.

Some angrily denounced the teacher, dismissing Gibbons' claims that she did not mean to insult the prophet.

"It is a premeditated action, and this unbeliever thinks that she can fool us?" said Yassin Mubarak, a young dreadlocked man swathed in green and carrying a sword.

"What she did requires her life to be taken," he said.
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