BERLIN: Resolution passed - no legal effect

Reuters, Jerusalem Post
July 19, 2012

German parliament defends circumcision after ban

Resolution to protect religious circumcision passes first hurdle in German parliament, decision would overrule Cologne court.

Germany's lower house of parliament passed a resolution on Thursday to protect the religious circumcision of infant boys after a district court ban on the practice outraged Muslims and Jews and sparked an emotional debate in the country.

The main political parties have criticized the ruling by a Cologne court and Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has promised a new law to make clear doctors or families will not be punished for carrying out the procedure.

The speed with which lawmakers agreed on the terms of the motion underscored sensitivity to charges of intolerance in a country haunted by its Nazi past.

The resolution, jointly filed by Merkel's conservatives, their liberal coalition ally (FDP) and the opposition Social Democrats (SPD), demanded that "the government present a draft law in the autumn ... that guarantees that the circumcision of boys, carried out with medical expertise and without unnecessary pain, is permitted".

The new law would overrule the Cologne court decision.

Lawmakers noted in the resolution that the court ruling had deeply unsettled Muslims and Jews in Germany, as they feared the practice would now be outlawed, while doctors were alarmed at the threat of prosecution if they performed operations.

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An overwhelming majority of lawmakers voted in favor of the resolution, although the small opposition Left party opposed it, suggesting that infant boys could have a "symbolic circumcision" then undergo the actual operation when older.

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The bill was rushed through in the same sitting as a vote on aid to Spain for which lawmakers were recalled from their holidays. [And are those events unconnected? Merkel's panic seems disproportionate to the number of people actually affected by an age-restriction.]
 

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Haaretz
July 19, 2012

Germany's parliament endorses resolution supporting circumcision right

Though it has no legal status, resolution aimed at calming outcry against court's verdict banning circumcision of a minor; government to draft legislation later this year. 

Germany's parliament passed a resolution Thursday endorsing the right of Muslim and Jewish parents to have sons circumcised.

The resolution, passed by a large majority on a show of hands, has no binding legal effect.

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The government is expected to draft legislation later this year to protect doctors performing male circumcisions from prosecution.

Although Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that prohibiting the religious practice would make Germany a laughing stock, surveys show large numbers of Germans are hostile to circumcision and want it outlawed.

Christine Lambrecht, a Social Democratic legislator, said many Germans had written to her charging that a legal exemption for Jews and Muslims would also permit a practice in some African and Middle Eastern nations known as female circumcision.

"Genital mutilation has nothing to do with the circumcision of boys," she said. "That is a crime and it will stay that way."

The Left Party opposed infant circumcision on the grounds that a baby cannot consent. One of its legislators, Jens Petermann, told the parliament: "A decision by the parents cannot prevail over the consent of the child himself."

A survey by the YouGov polling company for dpa found 45 percent of Germans want circumcision to be outlawed, 42 percent want it kept legal and 13 percent had no opinion.

Some 55 percent said they did not believe a legal ban on circumcision would lead hostility to Germany abroad. The circumcision of boys for non-religious reasons is rare in Germany.

The parliamentary resolution was jointly drafted by legislators from Merkel's coalition and opposition Social Democrats and Greens.

"The Bundestag urges the government to propose a bill in autumn 2012 which, taking account of the constitutional values of child welfare, physical freedom from injury, religious freedom and parents' upbringing rights, ensures that the medically competent circumcision of boys without unnecessary pain remains basically permissible," it said.

Earlier story

BERLIN: Human rights to be thrown out this year

Business Week
July 18, 2012

Germany to Pass Law on Circumcision to Counter Judges' Ruling

By Patrick Donahue
German legislators will pass a law this year permitting the circumcision of boys in response to global protests by religious groups reacting to a district court ruling that the practice amounts to bodily harm.

Social Democrat Burkhard Lischka, who sits on parliament’s legal-affairs committee, said his opposition party and the environmental Greens reached agreement with the governing coalition to seek draft legislation, probably by October. He said a “broad majority” will approve a resolution in the lower house, or Bundestag, tomorrow.
[Maybe the Japanese should just tell the Greens that killing whales is part of their religion....]
 
“You have two world religions that view the circumcision of boys as a constitutive path to join a community of faith,” Lischka said today in a phone interview in Berlin.
[If it's to join a community of faith it can wait until the person is old enough to have a faith.]
 
Jewish, Muslim and Christian organizations this month decried a May 7 Cologne court decision that circumcising boys constitutes battery even if parents consent to it, creating legal uncertainty and the prospect that doctors could be committing a crime by performing the procedure. Chancellor Angela Merkel warned party colleagues this week that Germany risks being branded a “nation of buffoons” if it becomes the only country to prohibit the practice, Bild newspaper reported.

Lischka said the legal situation was “somewhat complicated” by balancing the constitutional right of bodily integrity with freedom of religion. The resolution language will permit circumcision of boys by a trained professional in situations that avoid inflicting “unnecessary pain.”

Justice Ministry spokeswoman Mareke Aden said today that a draft law is planned by the fall and that the issue “can’t be pushed off” amid global scrutiny.

Vacations Interrupted
Bundestag lawmakers are interrupting their vacations to attend an emergency session tomorrow to approve as much as 100 billion euros ($123 billion) in bailout aid for Spain. The legislative process on circumcision will probably begin in late September after parliament reconvenes on Sept. 10.
European rabbis held a three-day emergency meeting last week ...

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Earlier story

BERLIN: Cross party support to legalise cuting (male) baby genitals

Europe Online magazine
July 17, 2012

Cross-party support forms in Germany to back circumcision

By Jean-Baptiste Piggin, Axel Hofmann
Berlin (dpa) - Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s supporters and the main opposition parties are in behind-the-scenes talks to endorse the Muslim and Jewish practice of circumcising boys, insiders said Tuesday.

They are jointly drafting a resolution to be passed on Thursday by the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, asking the government to overrule a court which ruled last month that circumcision is a form of assault.

There has been an international outcry over the trial of a Muslim doctor, who was let off but told that his circumcision of a young boy had been a crime because the child was too young to give consent.

Merkel‘s government has already said it will introduce legislation that explicitly allows circumcision, but this may take months. The urgent parliamentary resolution is seen as necessary to calm Jewish and Muslim anger on the issue.

Legislators said Merkel‘s Christian Democrats, the Christian Social Union and the Free Democrats (FDP), as well as opposition Social Democrats and Greens, were helping draft the broad resolution.

"Parliament has to do its bit to ensure that the religious beliefs of Muslims and Jews are respected," said Joerg van Essen, the FDP parliamentary whip. "The row shows we have to settle the law as quickly as possible."

Sources said all the parties agreed it was permissible to circumcise boys if the operation was done to a high standard. The resolution would at the same time condemn female circumcision. [Thus it will break the Basic Law 3.2 "Men and women shall have equal rights."] Other details had still to be negotiated.

While some commentators have supported the court ruling, Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Germany would be a laughing-stock if it became the sole country in the world to ban the practice. [So other countries should ban - or rather, age-restrict - the practice, Dumkopff!]
 

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Reuters
July 17, 2012
... But the court ruling has drawn support from some, including Britain's Secular Medical Forum which has written to Merkel urging her to resist pressure to make non-consensual circumcision lawful.
"EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL"

"We are shocked that religious groups deny the harm (caused by circumcision) and at the distorted and disingenuous claims made by those opposing the court's decision, wrongly suggesting that it is an indication of anti-Semitism," the chairman of the Secular Medical Forum, Dr. Antony Lempert, said in the letter.

"We urge you not to let such emotional blackmail persuade you to change the law or criticise the court's decision. As it stands, the court's decision ensures that today's children will be free to grow up to make their own decisions," it said.

Echoing such comments, Ronald Goldman, head of the U.S.-based Jewish Circumcision Resource Centre which opposes the practice, cited studies he said show that circumcision causes considerable pain and trauma.

"The majority of the world does not circumcise because of an instinctive awareness of the harm, analogous to cutting off any other healthy body part," it said in a statement entitled "The German Circumcision Ruling: What about the harm to the child?"

The German court ruling applies only to the city of Cologne and its environs - home to a large Muslim minority - but Jewish and Muslim groups fear it could set a precedent and the ban could spread to other parts of Germany.

German doctors have also urged politicians to act to clarify the legal situation, fearing the ruling may force circumcisions underground and increase health risks for young boys.
[This has never been offered as a reason to allow any female genital cutting - except briefly and abortively by a committee of the AAP in 2010 - though the health risks to them from backstreet FGC are much greater.]

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Earlier story

BERLIN: "Germany a laughing-stock" - Merkel

Arab News (AFP)
July 16, 2012

Circumcision ban could make Germany 'laughing stock': Merkel

BERLIN: Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel told her party the country risked becoming a “laughing stock” over a court ruling calling religious circumcision a criminal act, according to a report Monday.

The mass-circulation daily Bild said in an article to be published Tuesday that Merkel warned the board of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that Germany must restore legal protection for circumcision.

“I do not want Germany to be the only country in the world in which Jews cannot practise their rites,” Bild quoted Merkel as saying, citing several CDU members who attended the meeting.

“Otherwise we would make ourselves a laughing stock among nations.”

Merkel’s center-right government has pledged to take quick action to protect the right of Jews and Muslims to circumcize baby boys on religious grounds, and voiced concern about the ruling by the court in Cologne published in June.

The court said the removal of the foreskin for religious reasons amounted to grievous bodily harm and was therefore illegal, in a judgment that prompted an outcry at home and abroad. Diplomats admit that the ruling has proved “disastrous” to Germany’s international image, particularly in light of its Nazi past, following uproar from religious and political leaders in Israel as well as Muslim countries.

Earlier story