Two British peers on a mercy mission to Sudan spent a second day pressing talks with top officials on Sunday, scrambling to secure the early release of a woman teacher jailed for insulting religion.
Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi, Muslims from the upper house of Britain's parliament, hoped to meet President Omar al-Beshir, who alone can pardon Gillian Gibbons, but as the day wore on there was no confirmation of an appointment. "We're still making our case for the early release of Gillian Gibbons and we're still hopeful," Warsi told AFP in between a series of meetings with various personalities scheduled to last until evening.
A Sudanese court sentenced the British mother of two to 15 days in prison for allowing young pupils at an exclusive English private school in Khartoum, where Islamic Sharia law is enforced, to name a teddy bear Mohammed. Ahmed and Warsi have shuttled between cabinet ministers and officials since flying into Khartoum on Saturday. But while Warsi described some meetings as very optimistic, she said others had been "very challenging."
Thousands of people demonstrated on Friday after the main Muslim prayers in Khartoum, the conservative capital of the former British colony, against what they considered Gibbons's lenient sentence, with some calling for her death.
Being found guilty of insulting religion and inciting hatred in Sudan is punishable by up to six months in prison, 40 lashes and a fine. The British embassy told AFP there was still no confirmation of a meeting between the peers and Beshir, saying instead that British ambassador Rosalind Marsden had visited Gibbons for an hour on Sunday.