Making Pinocchio, Huckleberry Finn, and Heidi into Muslims

In Turkey, they're giving schoolkids a book full of Western stories touched up to make characters like Pinocchio, Huckleberry Finn, and Heidi into Muslims. (Via Memeorandum.) I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a traditional story from one culture and rewriting it putting the characters into a different culture. It can be confusing and bad art if you just slap on a few details and don't change the whole context, but there's a long tradition of passing around folk tales.

The bigger problem is bringing religion into government-run schools. Turkey "has been a strongly secular state since the 1920s." But before you get upset about depicting Heidi praying to Allah, you should consider whether you accept American public schools giving kids the Heidi story without expunging her praying. (I'm assuming Heidi prays in the original.) Should religion be censored from works of fiction used in public schools in the United States? If you think not, will you argue that the rule should be different in Turkey, because the state has a historical tradition and a real threat to ward off?