Sudan charges British teacher with inciting hatred after students name teddy bear 'Muhammad'

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan charged a British teacher Wednesday with inciting religious hatred after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, an offense that could subject her to 40 lashes, the Justice Ministry said.

The charge against Gillian Gibbons was sure to heighten tensions between Sudan and Britain. In London, Foreign Secretary David Miliband urgently summoned the Sudanese ambassador to discuss the case, the British government said.

Gibbons, 54, was arrested Sunday after some of her pupils' parents complained, accusing her of naming the bear after Islam's prophet. Muhammad is a common name among Muslim men, but giving the prophet's name to an animal would be seen as insulting by many Muslims.

Prosecutor General Salah Eddin Abu Zaid said Gibbons was charged under article 125 of the Sudanese legal code and her case would be referred to court Thursday.

If convicted, she faces up to 40 lashes, six months and prison and a fine, said Abdul Daem Zumrawi, the Justice Ministry's undersecretary.

"What will be applied is (at) the discretionary power of the judge to issue the verdict," he was quoted as saying by the official Sudanese News Agency.

The meeting between Miliband and the Sudanese ambassador to discuss the charge against Gibbons would take place as soon as possible, according to the British Foreign Office.

"We are surprised and disappointed by this development and the Foreign Secretary will summon as a matter of urgency the Sudanese ambassador to discuss the matter further," said Michael Ellam, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office.

Miliband would ask the "for the rationale behind the charges and a sense of what the next steps might be" amid an escalating diplomatic dispute in the case, he said.

"We will consider our response in the light of that," Ellam said.

In Khartoum, the British Embassy said diplomats had been allowed to visit Gibbons on Wednesday. "She said she was being well-treated and that she was OK," said embassy spokesman Omar Daair.

Gibbons was teaching her pupils, who are around age 7, about animals and asked one of them to bring in her teddy bear, said Robert Boulos, a spokesman for Unity High School in Khartoum. She asked the students to pick names for it and they proposed Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad, and in September, the pupils voted to name it Muhammad, he said.