Circumcision for religious reasons amounts to a crime, a German court has triggered uproar by ruling that
sparking religious outrage in the European country as reported in the German Daily The Local on Wednesday, July 28.
Chairman Islamic Religious Community Mr. Ali Demir said that “I feel the decision is discriminatory and counters efforts to promote integration,” in a statement cited by the German daily The Local.
A regional court in Cologne in western Germany ruled Tuesday that circumcision for religious reasons amounted to bodily harm and thus a crime.
“The fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents,” the court said in its ruling. “The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised,” reported in the Daily.
The ruling followed the circumcision of a four-year-old Muslim boy by a German doctor on his parents’ wishes. But the boy was brought to hospital days after being circumcised as he was bleeding heavily.
The doctor was charged with grievous bodily harm, but he was acquitted by a lower court. The court ruled that the judge had acted within the law in circumcising the child as the parents had given their consent. But on appeal, the regional court upheld the bodily harm charge against the doctor, but ruled that he was innocent as there was confusion about the legal situation around circumcision.
The court came down firmly against parents’ right to circumcise their young children.
“The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision,” the court said.
“This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs.”
But the court specified that circumcision was not illegal if carried out for medical reasons.
Germany has between 3.8 and 4.3 million Muslims, making up some 5 percent of the total 82 million population, according to government-commissioned studies.