Bellydancing out, cinema in, says Hamas
Chris McGreal in Gaza City Thursday April 6, 2006 Guardian
Attallah Abu al-Sibbah is keen to demonstrate that Hamas is not the Taliban. As the new Palestinian culture minister, he will not be ordering the dynamiting of statues nor forbidding prayers to anyone but Allah. But there are limits - and bellydancing is one of them.
"Bellydancing is naked women. This is not Islamic. The Egyptians come here and do it. And there are a lot of Russian bellydancers in Egypt and they come here too," said Mr Sibbah, 58, an Islamic scholar who joined the cabinet of the Hamas government installed last week.
"People do it indoors, in secret. There's lots of it," he said.
"If the phenomenon of bellydancing spreads our people might react against it by killing people. We don't want our people to become like the Taliban." ...
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1747882,00.html>
Carl