Teddy bears and Sudan

Background

If it is an offence to name a bear Mohammed, an issue on which the sharia jury is still out, then who is more culpable?

The adult, non-Muslim or the Muslim children.

To me, both are as culpable as each other. We would rightly be shocked if the Sudanese government took action against the children as we feel they are too young to know better. But if the teacher did have doubts over the name, I can see how they would be overridden by the fact that it was Muslims themselves who were suggesting the name. If she had had concerns, maybe she thought 'oh, they can't have been valid as these children are saying that it's ok'.

But oh well, let's throw out any ideas of carefully considering the issue and, if any action needed to be taken, making it proportionate. There are hundreds of thousands of people dying in Darfur and the south still isn't great, better have a scapegoat to deflect attention instead....

... and it seems Sudanese bloggers agree