TURKEY: $250,000 payout for botched cut

The Guardian
January 20, 2015

Record award for family of Turkish boy whose circumcision was botched

Boy who was taken to mass circumcision ceremony for disadvantaged children lost large portion of his penis and health ministry ordered $255,000 payment

A Turkish court has approved a record compensation payment for the family of a boy who had a large portion of his penis removed and burnt off in a botched circumcision operation, media reported.

The boy, who is now six, underwent the operation when he was one year old in a mass circumcision ceremony for boys from disadvantaged families in the south-eastern city of Batman.

The upper portion of the penis was mistakenly cut and burnt off during the operation, and the boy was still receiving care for his wounds, private Dogan news agency reported.

On Tuesday, a Batman court ordered the health ministry to pay the boy’s family a record 600,000 Turkish liras ($255,000) in damages, Dogan said.

The family of seven claimed that the operation was carried out only by a health technician because no qualified doctor was present during the circumcision.

The boy was sent home with burn creams and was told to “have some rest to heal properly”.
The parents, however, are not satisfied with the amount, saying that their child might require further treatment, including care abroad.

They are still seeking more than 2 million more Turkish liras ($850,000) in damages, Dogan said.
Circumcision is widely practised in all Islamic countries, including predominantly Muslim but staunchly secular Turkey.

It is an expense that many families find difficult to afford, with the operation costing hundreds of dollars and the ensuing celebrations even more.

As a result, many parents choose to pay unskilled circumcisers or barbers, who perform the operation with unsterilised instruments.

BERLIN : Turkish circumcision play misses the point

Worldcrunch
October 23, 2014

Foreskin, The Play: Circumcision As Art For A Turkish Playwright

A Turkish immigrant playwright in Germany explores the meaning and theater of a religious rite that divides modern society.
by Igal Avidan
BERLIN - A quiet New Year's Eve in the maternity ward of a Berlin hospital. The doctor, a woman of Turkish descent, pours sparkling wine for herself and a blonde nurse. But the quiet ends when a fit, young, undershirt-clad macho man arrives pushing his pregnant wife Ela in a wheelchair. His name is Abraham B. Schneider. Pronounced in German, B. Schneider comes out as Beschneider, meaning "circumcisor."

His brother-in-law, an elegantly dressed real estate mogul named Mohammed Habibi Nassir, enters with them. Before the baby boy is even born, both men are vigorously insisting that he must be circumcised, after being pressured to do so by Ela's domineering Turkish mother Elif. When the only German family member, Christian Eichelmann [another pun, Eichel meaning "glans"] arrives, the other men try to bribe him into a pro-circumcision stance. Eichel, though, feels he has to defend "Europe's last firewall" and "the oppression of the German majority."

Is this comedy playing at a Berlin theater payback for the national debate that took place two years ago about forbidding circumcision? At the time, a German court ruled that when carried out for purely religious reasons, circumcision was an act of bodily harm. After further discussions and deliberations [and direct pressure from Israel's President Shimon Peres], the country's national parliament passed by a wide margin a regulation stating that parents had the right to have their sons circumcised shortly after birth, but only if certain standards are observed and if a religious circumcisor can carry out the procedure.

Lead dramatist Tunçay Kulaoglu claims the idea for the play, which is called Vorhaut ("Foreskin"), actually predated all that. It was the product, he says, of a barroom powwow among the actors, who, when the topic popped up "out of the blue," started swapping their own circumcision stories. "We were curious since this was hardly a daily subject of conversation. So we asked each other, 'Hey, how was it with you?'" Bremen-based director Miraz Bezar recalls.

... Did he want to be circumcised? "I was eight years old at the time," he says. "Working on the play, we had heated discussions about when a boy is fully able to decide that for himself."...
Those personal experiences inspired certain aspects of the play. ...

Other elements of the work, however, were drawn from the 2012 national debate on circumcision, which occurred after the actors came up with the original idea, ...

TURKEY: Boy loses penis in circumcision

Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey)
January 2, 2013

Child's penis cut off in circumcision feast, family claims two million TL compensation

The family of a 3-year-old child whose penis was cut off during a collective circumcision feast in the southeastern province of Batman has demanded 2 million Turkish Liras [$US 1,120,000] in compensation from the Ministry of Health by applying to the Council of State.

The family of the boy sued the ministry in Batman's administrative court after the incident two years ago, with the local court awarding 600,000 Turkish Liras [$US 337,000] in damages.

However, not satisfied with this amount, the family is claiming that the boy may require further treatment, including treatment abroad. It is also claimed that the circumcision was not performed by a qualified doctor, but rather an unqualified member of hospital personnel.

BERLIN: Turkish Bundestag member opposes law-change

TagesZeitung (TAZ, liberal-progressive, Berlin)
July 26, 2012

Religions should accept a subordinate role

Green Party member of Parliament Memet Kilic of Heidelberg grew up in Turkey. He voted against the Bundestag resolution. He finds that those affected should decide for themselves at the age of 14 what should happen to their foreskin.

TAZ (Interviewer Daniel Bax): Mr. Kilic, recently the Bundestag weighed in on a law to regulate religious circumcisions. Why did you vote against it?

Kilic: I was against it because it stifled a necessary debate. This must occur before such a decision is made.

TAZ: Many Muslims and Jews consider the circumcision of boys as a religious obligation. Can the German state assume a right to pass judgment on that?

Kilic: Until a few weeks ago I would have said no to that. But the Cologne ruling has given me food for thought because what is preached in holy books must now be freshly interpreted in light of reason and medical progress. Indeed, one country alone cannot succeed in changing religious rituals and customs of its citizens. But it can question them and can enter into a dialogue with the religious communities.

TAZ: Didn’t the Cologne ruling make a quick political action necessary because it caused uncertainty for so many parents and physicians?

Kilic:  Absolutely. But when there are strong reasons, in Islam as well as in Judaism, circumcision can be postponed for a while. The Cologne ruling is one such strong reason – and the religious communities must respect constitutional democracy.

TAZ: A prohibition on religious circumcision could tempt many Jewish and Muslim parents to have their sons circumcised abroad. Isn’t that risking the creation of circumcision tourism into different countries?

Kilic: That already exists. For cost reasons, or because they want to celebrate the circumcision within family circles, many parents already allow this surgery to be performed in their home country. Yet, a constitutional state is therefore not tasked with making it easier in this country, but has to balance different legally protected rights.

TAZ: Whether circumcision comes with physical disadvantages is controversial. Why should the German state interfere in those questions?

Kilic: The medical benefits are not proven but if it’s medically necessary then such circumcisions should continue to be permitted. Yet I consider it questionable to rely on health arguments to justify religious commandments. Certain religious communities mark their members with circumcision. I’m all for those affected making this decision themselves when they are 14, at the age of religious consent under German law.

TAZ: Unlike Muslims, for religious Jews it isn’t possible to wait that long when the procedure traditionally happens at 8 days. Is your suggestion realistic?

Kilic:  For devout Jews this is difficult, I agree. But some Jewish communities in Great Britain have reduced circumcision to a symbolic act and postponed the operation to a later time. This seems exemplary to me.

TAZ: Should Germany of all countries, with its history, be the first to restrict a Jewish tradition?
Kilic: I’m aware that anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim sentiment may rise to the surface in such a debate.  It’s our duty to be sensitive with such issues, not only because of the Holocaust, but Germany also has signed a treaty on children’s rights. Furthermore, the Cologne ruling  is simply logical for a secular society and is much better than what it’s been made out to be because it balances many aspects. Therefore the large religious communities should not jump the gun by swinging a big stick with the slogan “You don’t want us!”

TAZ: About 30% of men worldwide are said to be circumcised. And so far there has hardly been any controversy about it. Isn’t this just an artificially created problem that doesn’t exist?

Kilic: No I don’t see it like that. It doesn’t help the argument to point to statistics. The Cologne court has ruled in a concrete case, and medical and children’s organizations have clearly spoken to this question. However, many of those involved act out of social pressures and traditions without properly reflecting upon them. Also the motivations of the circumcision industry which originated in the USA is by all means questionable.

(Translated by Bernd Vey and Tim Hammond)

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