Sudan overreacted in teddy bear case – US

Novemeber 30, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The U.S. said Friday that Sudan overreacted in jailing a U.K. teacher for 15 days for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed as it supports the U.K.’s efforts for her release.

“We are very supportive of the British government in this regard. They are working to get their citizen back,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

“There is a shared assessment that the punishment that has been imposed on this woman is in every way excessive,” even though it has been reduced from corporal punishment to a 15-day jail sentence, McCormack said.

“I don’t know what more we can say about the case, but clearly there is an overreaction from individuals involved in prosecuting this case against this woman.”

Gillian Gibbons, 54, was jailed by a court in Khartoum on Thursday for allowing pupils in her class of seven- and eight-year-olds to give the bear the same name as the Muslim prophet, as part of a school project.

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband called in the Sudanese ambassador to London twice for talks on the issue, underlining that Gibbons’ actions were the result of an “innocent misunderstanding.”

(AFP)