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Latest update: 16/07/2012
- Angela Merkel - Germany - Jews - justice - Muslims - religion
Merkel calls for reversal of court ban on circumcision
Chancellor Angela Merkel told her CDU party on Monday that Germany must overturn a court ban on the Jewish and Muslim practise of circumcision, saying Germany should not be "the only country in the world in which Jews cannot practise their rites".
By News Wires (text)
AFP - 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 centre-right government has pledged to take quick action to protect the right of Jews and Muslims to circumcise 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 judgement 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.
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(7) Reactions
The Court was right!
In short reply to the atheist and christian parents who were misinformed that there are health benefits to circumcision. You missed the point! You are entitled to do to your own body what you wish to. Your newly born child is entitled to be free from mutilation until he is old enough to choose for himself what he will do with his body! No form of piercing, cutting, tattooing or modification for any purpose religious or otherwise should be inflicted on a child too young to give informed consent.
Angela Merkle should stand down on this one and let the rest of Europe and the world follow suit.
Israelite circumcision was
Israelite circumcision was originally only the cutting of the foreskin. However, after Hellenistic Jews tried to cover up their circumcision by various means of stretching the foreskin, the Rabis added in another step. This procedure is called priah (Hebrew: פריעה), which means: 'uncovering', and consists of peeling back the epithelium after the foreskin has been amputated.
The claim that circumcision is a continuous bond with the times of Abraham is false. It has changed before and can change again.
She is Right
circumsion is popular in many countries including the US and is not just restricted to Muslims and Jews. It is an ancient practice and is linked to hygeine. This is more abt xenophobia, its shame that those who are not intelligent enough to argue resort to name calling and xenophobic sexist comments.
Fundamentalist approach seems to be quite alive in Europe
I was ashamed when I read other comments supporting the ban. I am an atheist, my wife is a Christian, we live in Turkey and we had our baby boy circumcized for health reasons right after he was born. Some comments have exactly the same logic as Islamic fanatics seeing piercing as bodily mutilation ! Our bodies are our bodies. My wife -gave birth- to our children and we are not gonna "Iran wannabes" decide what we do with our bodies !!
Hey Merkel, Put on your big girl panties!
The court was right. I noticed you left the Muslims out of this reversal. So is the E.U. going to allow forced marriages, and female circumcision,and child marriages too? Those are archaic religious practices too?
Or is this reversal alerting everyone just how powerful the Jewish community is in dictating policy? Do tell Ms. Merkel.
Incidentally, I was not laughing. I was applauding.
Hysterical reaction to circumcision ruling
No one at all seems to have noticed that the ruling was for a case of the circumcision of a Muslim boy that went wrong - and we have this hysteria that makes us believe it is a bolt out of the blue aimed solely at Jewish people.
And Merkel is being true to her modern German brainwashing that says all Germans - after at least a 2000 year history - are always to feel guilty for the crimes of psychopaths that ruled Germany for only 12 years.
And for her to think she can just over ride the judiciary and demand it conform to her middle class angst mentality perhaps harks back to her upbringing in the DDR where such a mentality was normal for its government.
Ban on Circumcision
I am in complete agreement with this ban. Circumcision is viewed as a barbaric ritual to some. The male child should obtain his RIGHT to avoid bodily mutilation until he is of age to consent to it.