Teddy row teacher flying back to UK
Press Association Tuesday December 4, 2007 3:08 AM
A British teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Mohammed is due to arrive back in the UK after receiving a presidential pardon.
Gillian Gibbons spent more than a week in jail for insulting Islam and prompted a diplomatic row after letting her seven-year-old pupils give the bear the same name as the sacred prophet.
She was due to be incarcerated for 15 days but was released early after diplomacy by British parliamentarians Lord Ahmed of Rotherham and Baroness Warsi secured a pardon from the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
The 54-year-old then left Sudan, stopping in Dubai en route to London.
At her son's home in Wavertree, Liverpool, family and friends were already preparing for a celebration. Visitors to the house on Monday night arrived laden with beer, wine and flowers.
Her 25-year-old son John said: "Obviously we're very pleased. I'd like to thank the Government for all they have done, the hard work behind the scenes, especially the two peers who went out there. Everyone's been really great.
"Obviously it's a great feeling, we're very pleased, we have been under a lot of pressure."
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that Mrs Gibbons was in "remarkably good spirits". She had been jailed on Thursday.
After speaking to the mother-of-two, Mr Miliband welcomed her pardon. He said: "She was a little overwhelmed by the amount of coverage she understood this case had received and proud of the way her family had stood up over the last week."
In a statement after her pardon, Mrs Gibbons said she did not intend to offend anyone and stressed that she had great respect for Islam
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1 comment:
I'm happy she is home, safe
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