MPs hope to meet Sudan president over teacher

KHARTOUM - Two British Muslim politicians said they hoped to meet Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Sunday to secure the early release of a British teacher jailed for allowing her class to name a teddy bear Mohammad.

Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced to 15 days in jail in Sudan for insulting religion, is being held in a clean, private jail and is in good spirits, defence lawyer Kamal al-Jazouli said, who visited her on Sunday.

"I'm still hopeful....I understand the cultural and religious sensitivities around Islam but as a British woman I have huge concerns for Gillian," Baroness Sayeeda Warsi told Reuters, referring to hopes of securing an early release.

"I just hope that we can continue presenting the case for Gillian and reach an early resolution," Warsi said.

"This is a huge issue and we must remain optimistic and hopeful that we can resolve it as early as possible."

Warsi and Lord Ahmed, members of Britain's upper house of parliament, are waiting to meet Bashir but presidential sources said no meeting had been scheduled for Sunday.

The two are in Khartoum as part of an initiative by Muslim parliamentarians in Britain to secure Gibbons' release.

Jazouli said Gibbons, a 54-year-old from Liverpool, was being held in a clean and well-guarded prison. Defence lawyers had said she would be sent to Omdurman women's prison, a run-down and basic prison.

"It is clean, well-guarded ... and she came to me smiling if a little bit sad," Jazouli said.

"She said she was sad because she never imagined her stay in Sudan would end up like this."

"She loved her pupils very much and they loved her. She said she would miss them when she goes outside Sudan."

After her jail sentence she is to be deported.

Gibbons' lawyers and British embassy staff have refused to give details of her location after hundreds of Muslims took to the streets of the capital on Friday, many waving swords and green Islamic flags, calling for her death.

British embassy staff visited her again on Sunday for an hour.

Gibbons let her 7-year-old pupils at Khartoum's private Unity High School pick their favourite name for a teddy bear as part of a project on animals in September. Twenty out of 23 of them chose Mohammad -- a popular boy's name in Sudan, as well as the name of Islam's Prophet.

Gibbons circulated a letter to parents, telling them that the children would be bringing the teddy bear home at weekends as part of the exercise. Two months later, a member of the school staff handed the letter to Sudan's Ministry of Education.

Gibbons was arrested last Sunday and charged on Wednesday with insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs -- charges punishable by up to 40 lashes, a year in prison or a fine.

Public opinion in Britain was shocked by the guilty verdict and the Sudan Tribune news Web site said it had been inundated by hate mail, mostly from Britons.