Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Bans Children’s Books Over Alleged Violation of Cultural Norms.

The Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan has banned a series of children’s text books from schools in the conservative East African Country claiming they violate local cultural norms.

This was announced by Tanzania's Education Minister Adolf Mkenda on  Monday and according to Mkenda, the government was monitoring libraries in both public and private schools to make sure they were not on their shelves.

It was not immediately clear what content in the series of illustrated books by US author Jeff Kinney that follow the life of a schoolboy had offended the authorities.

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The banned books include "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, ”Sex Education: A Guide to Life". However, the names he gave for two books actually appeared to be pages from "An ABC of Equality" which included the terms transgender and LGBTQIA.

"We are banning these books from schools and other education institutions because they contradict Tanzanian cultural norms and morals," Mkenda told reporters in the political capital Dodoma.

"The books also violate the good practices of bringing up our children," he said, calling on parents to inspect their children's bags to make sure they did not have the books.

Mkenda said they were on a first list of "unacceptable books" and urged the public to report other similar books as part of an ongoing investigation.

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The first book in the "Wimpy Kid" series was published in 2007 and since then 275 million copies have been sold worldwide in 69 languages with several film adaptations according to the wimpykid.com website

 President Samia Suluhu Hassan while meeting university student leaders last week asked them to be careful with some "imported cultures", though he didn’t elaborate more about her statement.

"If you are a Tanzanian, live in accordance with our cultures," Hassan said.

Her comments came at a time after recent debate by the Church of England that voted on Thursday last week to offer blessings to same-sex couples.

The vote came at a meeting of the General Synod, the church's governing body, where the compromise approach was described in a variety of ways: as a breakthrough, a flawed compromise, or an outright mistake.