'Blasphemy' Teacher Appears in Court

A British primary school teacher appeared in a Sudanese court today after being charged with "insulting religion and inciting hatred" for allowing children in her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, has been held by police since Sunday, accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad. If found guilty, she could be given 40 lashes, a fine or a six-month jail term.

At the start of her trial in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the prosecutor general said Gibbons, whose case has drawn international condemnation, could expect a swift and fair trial.

Despite her colleagues insisting hers was an innocent mistake, Sudan's deputy justice minister confirmed yesterday that she had been charged. "The investigation has been completed and the Briton Gillian was charged under article 125 of the penal code," said Abdel Daim Zamrawi, speaking to the official Sudan news agency in Khartoum.

"The punishment for this is jail, a fine and lashes. It is up to the judge to determine the sentence."

Khalid al-Mubarak, a spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in London, said today he hoped the case would be resolved in an "amicable way".

"It can be resolved in an amicable way, through a fair hearing," he told BBC News 24. "The judge [could] decide to dismiss the case."

Mubarak said naming the teddy bear Muhammad seemed to have been an "honest mistake".

He told BBC Breakfast News: "It should have been discussed at school level but there was a complaint from some irate parents who pressed the case and it went to the ministry of education."

Asked if he thought Gibbons would be able to return to Britain soon, Mubarak said: "This is my hope and my prayer."

A separate statement from the embassy said the case should not be treated "as a media sensation". It said: "We certainly do not wish to resort to trial by media."

Sudan's ambassador to London was summoned to the Foreign Office last night following the announcement that Gibbons would appear in court today.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, told GMTV: "We are pretty shocked and surprised about the way the Sudanese have behaved in these circumstances. That's why David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has urgently demanded to meet with the Sudanese ambassador so we can make clear our views and hopefully get Mrs Gibbons freed as soon as possible."

Gibbons arrived in Sudan in August to take up a post at the exclusive Unity high school, which follows a British-style curriculum. In September, during a class on animals and their habitats, she asked her seven-year-old pupils to give a teddy bear a name. They chose Muhammad, the name of one of the boys in the class and a popular name in Sudan.

Last week the education ministry informed the school that a few Muslim parents had complained about the name, and police arrested Gibbons at her home in the school grounds.

Sudan's top clerics, known as the assembly of the Ulemas, said in a statement on Wednesday that parents had handed them a book the teacher was assembling about the bear. "She, in a very abusive manner, used the name of Prophet Muhammad, may Allah shame her," the statement said.

Unity's directors have shut the school to avoid protests like those that greeted the publication of notorious cartoons of the Muslim prophet in a Danish newspaper last year.