Hamas school ministry bans book, angering some

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Mar 7 (Reuters) The Hamas-led Education Ministry has banned from schools an anthology of Palestinian folk tales, one of which refers to sexual awakening, drawing fire from the book's editor and some educators.

Critics said the order, issued without fanfare a month ago, was the first direct sign Hamas Islamists were trying to impose their religious views on Palestinian society since taking control of the government in March 2006.

The Education Ministry banned the anthology, called ''Speak Bird, Speak Again'', in an order dated February 6 to government-run public schools in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian Education Minister Naser al-Shaer was not immediately available to comment.

One of the stories in the anthology includes a chapter titled, ''Sexual awakening and courtship'', and mentions male genitals. The book was first distributed to public school libraries in 2003. Most have between 3 and 4 copies.

The order, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, said ''Speak Bird, Speak Again'' should be removed from school libraries and destroyed because it contained language that ''hurts public modesty''.

A teacher in the West Bank city of Jenin said copies of the book were burned at several schools.

PALESTINIAN IDENTITY The Education Ministry's decision alarmed some educational experts and school principals, who said the folk tales in the anthology were well known and a part of Palestinian identity.

Abdul-Rahim al-Shaikh, a professor at West Bank's Birzeit University, described the decision as ''fascist''.

''Fighting popular memory is in fact waging a war against the Palestinian national narrative,'' he said.

Hamas's charter advocates an Islamic Palestinian state and says its ultimate goal is to use the Koran as the constitution. But before and after winning parliamentary elections in January 2006, Hamas leaders pledged not to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on secular Palestinians.

Although the Palestinian Education Minister was not available to comment, local media quoted him as saying books were neither destroyed nor withdrawn.

The 400-page anthology, narrated by Palestinian women, was put together by Sharif Kanaana, a novelist and anthropology professor at Bir Zeit University, and by Ibrahim Muhawi, a teacher of Arabic literature and the theory of translation.

''It would have been a criminal act had I changed these tales. I have to quote these tales as they were told,'' Kanaana said, adding that some of them date back 3,000 to 4,000 years.

''It makes me very sad to have ignorant people responsible for educating our children,'' Kanaana said.

A principal in a Ramallah public school said he uses the anthology to tell bedtime stories to his children.

''I do not find anything in these tales that 'hurts public modesty', otherwise we should ban from the curriculum science books that show genitals,'' he said.

A public school teacher said: ''Even my mother-in-law knows many of these tales by heart. She keeps telling them to my two kids. I see no harm in it.'' Reuters SY DB0950