Hansel and Gretel Meet Mohammed

Below is a very peculiar news story from the news site for Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

I was struck when I first read this by its resemblance to the “Hansel and Gretel” fairy tale: a woman with ulterior motives uses sweets to lure a boy and a girl into her home. In this case, however, it’s not an oven that awaits them, but… recitations from the Koran!

Many thanks to our Bulgarian correspondent RR for the translation:

A 36-year old lady named Nejla was arrested for the illegal detention of a child in her home in Plovdiv [Bulgaria’s second biggest city]. According to sources familiar with the case, she is a radical Islamist.

For quite some time Nejla used to lure a 13-year old girl and her 10-year old brother, promising them sweets and some reading of tales from “interesting books”. This Saturday afternoon the children visited Nejla’s flat, where she began to read to them the Quran. The religious recitations were boring to the children so they wanted to go home, but Nejla threatened them that Allah would punish them, and that “infidels’ hands and feet should be chopped off” [a true Quranic verse — RR]. The children were upset and terrified, and the boy managed to escape from the flat, all in tears. Meanwhile Nejla locked up the girl in her flat. After the boy raised the alarm with some neighbours, police intervened.

Nejla is a Bulgarian who adopted Islam fifteen years ago. She is a fervent Muslim and wears a black burka leaving only her eyes visible. Most of her neighbours consider her “not dangerous”, and some believed she needs psychiatric treatment. “She’s only able to frighten small children,” said an elderly lady neighbour. After the present incident, however, they seem to have changed their minds…

On searching her home, the police discovered religious literature from Saudi Arabia propagating radical Islam… The woman, who turned out to have a criminal past, was detained for 24 hours.

RR adds this commentary:

A common Islamist story. Bulgarian reactions still seem adequate, in any case. I’m afraid that in countries with more advanced democracy, the police would instead arrest the children and their parents for “hate crimes” against Nejla in their expression of dislike for the Quran and running away from her recitations.