President to discuss pardon for teacher

? Sudan’s president will meet a British delegation today to discuss a possible pardon for a teacher imprisoned in Sudan for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, a presidential spokesman said Sunday.

Two Muslim members of British parliament, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Lord Nazir Ahmed, have been in Sudan for two days trying to set up a meeting with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He is the only one who can pardon Gillian Gibbons, the 54-year-old British teacher who has been imprisoned since Thursday.

Gibbons was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation for insulting Islam because she allowed her students to give a teddy bear the same name as Islam’s revered prophet – a violation under Sudan’s Islamic Sharia law.