A teddy bear named Mohammed
The first teddy bear was named after a president called Theodore. When a primary school teacher in Sudan recently allowed her class to name a teddy bear Mohammed she ended up spending eight days in jail. Which seems rather odd because nobody went to jail for allocating a bear with the much more offensive name of Pooh. If not for a presidential intervention the teacher would have spent 15 days without her liberty. Clearly Sudan is not the most enlightened place on earth. It must be quite unbearable.
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A friend made the point to me that in fact there are far more offensive things named ‘Mohammed’! (e.g., Atta, et al)
Of course Sudan, while no where close to the most elightened place on earth (in any part), has significant internal variation.
What a shithole. They wonder why they are poor.
Laws such as this bring Sudan and their religion into disrepute. They should be banned.
I don’t recall any Buddhists being so immature when somebody named a bear Yogi.
She’s lucky she didn’t get the corporal punishment: they would have whipped the stuffing out of her. But that’s what happens in Raggedy sudAnne
In western democracies, ignorance of the law is no defence. There must be dozens of Australians who have spent a lot longer than 15 days in jail for doing something that they didn’t know, and couldn’t have known, was illegal.
The pot calls the kettle black.
I think it’s great to see western media drawing attention to this.
It’s hard to imagine a society that tolerates those braindead idiots calling for the execution of this women.
Sure, ignorance of the law is no excuse. But it’s good to see some attention drawn to a country that obviously has a very low standard of legal protection of basic human rights such as free speech.
Indeed, Gavin, for ignorance of the law to reasonably be considered ‘no defence’ the law must first be rational and predictable.
(However, few of those Australians were likely to have people calling for their execution)
Gavin,
Maybe we should limit what is illegal then?
I’m not sure if this comment is directed at me specifically. Maybe not.
In any case I do support the rule of law. However only because the alternative is the rule of government whim, which would be far worse. The rule of law constrains the action of those that govern and forces them to articulate what they prescribe in formal terms and to apply their will with some measure of consistancy. Supporting the rule of law is not the same as supporting dumb laws just as supporting freedom of speech is not the same as supporting dumb ideas.
Just so Terje doesn’t have the last word- I agree with him completely. But he still hasn’t told us when the LDP will be scrapping income taxes.
And as for the woman and the bear, whilst ignorance of the law cannot be used as an excuse, or we would all claim to be completely ignorant when a police-person turned up, the judge should have taken her ignorance into account when thinking of a sentence- and he should have given all the kids 100 lashes. They are Muslims, and they would have known the law. That’ll teach them to get their teachers into trouble!
I have followed this story, and am relieved that it is over. For some reason the Australian didn’t reveal this: -
The British teacher jailed in Sudan for letting students name a teddy bear Muhammed was whisked to a secret location Friday after armed mobs demanded her execution.
Protesters brandishing clubs and knives streamed out of mosques and rallied outside the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum.
“No tolerance: Execution,” they shouted. “Kill her, kill her by firing squad.”
Separation of church and state has to be protected.
At times like these, everyone always shouts ‘but where are the moderate Muslims?’
Well, for a pleasant change, they were a very vocal force in demonstrating for her release, demonstrating outside the Sudanese Embassy in London. Maybe times are a changing.
It seems that my meaning was not quite clear, so let me try again:
If ignorance of Sudanese law should sometimes be a defence — which was apparently the argument used in the calls for clemency — then the same principle should apply under western common law. But it doesn’t — whether the law is “rational and predictable” or not.
Gavin; a call for clemency is not in itself a legal argument, but an appeal to the authorities to grant some form of dispensation in a particular case.
Such an appeal has as far as I am aware no actual legal standing and is made in the hope that someone in authority will listen and act.
As such it can take any form the appellant thinks is reasonable, from being from a different culture, and not understanding the seriousness of such matters in that countries culture, to ‘well she’s cute and it would be a shame to lock her up’, or perhaps, ’she didn’t mean to offend you, and is remorseful, and her children need her.
OK, Jim Fryar, a call for clemency is not a legal argument, but an appeal to executive authority. But when such an appeal is made in Australia on the basis of ignorance of the law, executive authority is unmoved. Google Ostrowski v Palmer.
SO?
Actually the executive in Australia as I understand things does not have the legal authority to grant clemency. Appeals to the executive may not entail legal arguments but where they occur they are part of a lawful process. For example govenors in US states as well as the US president have the lawful power to grant clemency or a lesser sentence. The intent is to act as a check on the judiciary. Of course the argument for clemency does not need to be a legal one. It can be along the lines of “I’m Paris Hilton please let me off”.
She could always have tried the Phryne defence.
Terje; I am glad you came into this as I believed this to be the case, but wasn’t sure. I think the only power in this area the executive branch is to launch an appeal, normally in relation to the sentence being inadequate.
And I would let you off if you were in fact Paris Hilton.
P.M. Lawrence; Love it, sounds like my kind of girl.
“Ignorance Of The Law Is No Defence” is a cowardly statement anyway. There are many, many things that are illegal that a reasonable person wouldn’t think are illegal.
The only effect this kind of thinking has is to condition innocent, law-abiding people to fear our justice system, and to have good reason to do so.
With defendants like Phryne, jury duty would would have waiting lists and Hugh Hefner would be a Supreme Court judge.
Athenian jury duty was paid enough for survival and juries were large. It had an economic effect much like a Citizen’s Dividend, helping with trickle down too. However, the nearest analogue of judges – more generally, that level of magistrates and administrative executive positions – were short term and filled by lot like our juries.
Ahhh Islam…the way forward. Let’s flood Australia with them.
mohammad pbuh. is a big deal in isalm. so open ur eyes and dont be so ignorant. i think da government did what they felt was right. we cant compare that to our society it is two different standards.
I find this whole bear debacle too extreme, especially the cries that the teacher should be executed for naming the bear Mohammed! It may be a prophet’s name, but why should this be such a terrible thing? By extension, if this women deserves to die for naming a teddy bear Mohammed, then all parents who named their sons Mohammed should be executed as well. See the point I’m trying to make here? The big huff about the name of a teddy bear just seems outrageous to me.
Patricia, she didn’t name it. The class came up with the name, perhaps under the same logic they should probably get a few hundred lashes as well.
Some of our christian fundamentalists can get pretty weird but I think they would fall short of calling for calling a teddy bear Jesus or moses.
Irregardless of whether she herself named the bear or not, my point is, its ridiculous to call for the execution of this woman just because she has a bear that has the same name as a saint when there are men and boys in this world bearing that same name!
And what do Christian fundamentalists have to do with anything? I’m Pagan.
Patricia; I was not defending these people, I was in fact pointing out how ridiculous the whole thing was. The Christian fundamentalists would be relevant were they ever able to form a government and turn whatever country they did it in into a theocracy.
Strong guarantees of separation of church and state are the only defense against this sort of thing in any state where any religion is strong.
This incident is one of the best arguments there is for a secular state.