Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case

The Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case concerns the 2007 arrest, trial, conviction, imprisonment, and subsequent release of British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons, who taught children of middle-class Muslim and Christian families at Unity High School in Khartoum, Sudan.

[7] The chairman of the Unity School council, Ezikiel Kondo, indicated that he perceived ulterior motives in the affair: "The thing may be very simple, but they just may make it bigger.

[1] On 28 November, it was reported that she had been formally charged under Section 125 of the Sudanese Criminal Act, for "insulting religion, inciting hatred, sexual harassment, racism, prostitution and showing contempt for religious beliefs".

[14] On 30 November, approximately 10,000 protesters took to the streets in Khartoum,[15] some of them waving swords and machetes, demanding Gibbons's execution after imams denounced her during Friday prayers.

[17] In an attempt to push for the release of Gibbons, two British Muslim peers, Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi, visited Sudan with hopes of talking to the country's President Omar al-Bashir.

After eight days in prison, she was released into the care of the British embassy in Khartoum and then returned to Liverpool after issuing a written statement saying: "I have a great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone.