BERLIN – A regional court in the west German city of Cologne issued a decision
terming circumcisions to be a form of bodily harm and subject to criminal
penalties, according to the German language edition of the Financial Times (FTD)
on Monday, triggering an angry reaction from the Central Council of Jews on
Tuesday.
According to the head of the Central Council, Dr. Dieter
Graumann, the court issued an “unprecedented and dramatic interference in the
right of religious communities to self-determination.” He added that the
decision is an “inappropriate and insensitive act.”
Graumann said that
circumcision of male babies is a Jewish ritual that has been practiced for
thousands of years worldwide.
The Central Council called on the
“Bundestag as a lawmaker to create legal security so that religious freedom is
protected.”
The FTD, which obtained a copy of the court ruling, wrote
that it was the first time in Germany that a religious practice has been
criminalized. The Cologne case revolves around the circumcision of a
four-year-old child. The parents brought the child to a Muslim physician who
performed the circumcision. It is unclear from the report if the child is
Muslim. After two days, the child suffered from bleeding and was taken to an
emergency center for children. The local prosecutor filed charges against the
person who performed the circumcision.
According to the court’s ruling,
the case represents a “severe and irreversible damage of physical
integrity.”
The FTD reported that the Muslim and Jewish communities are
reviewing the ruling and have not commented.
A University of Passau legal
scholar, Holm Putzke told the paper in contrast to many politicians in Germany,
“the court did not allow itself to be concerned about being criticized for anti-
Semitism or hostility toward religion.”
Putzke said the court ruling
would fundamentally alter the concept of children’s rights in the Federal
Republic. He said the decision could lead to a change of consciousness of the
affected religions to respect the rights of children.
The court ruling,
according to the FTD, may be challenged and may compel a decision from Germany’s
highest legal body – the Federal Constitutional Court.
The online edition
of the Jewish Press website quoted Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg, vice president of the
Rabbinical Center of Europe, saying “the Court’s decision is unacceptable and
gravely violates religious freedom.”
He added that “the decision is
contrary to human rights charter of the European Union, to which the German
legal system is committed, and undermines the basic right to worship in the
German Constitution.”
It is not the first time that Cologne’s
prosecutorial and legal system has triggered national controversy in
Germany.
In 2010, the public prosecutor ruled that a cartoon exhibit,
widely believed to be anti-Semitic, did not meet the criteria of incitement to
hate because it did not constitute hatred of Jews and the petitioner, who
objected to the exhibit, was not Jewish. One cartoon shows a man sporting a Star
of David on his bib as he devours a young Palestinian boy with a fork draped in
an American flag and a knife with the word “Gaza.” A glass filled with blood
stands next to to his dinner plate. Gerd Buurmann, the non- Jewish resident, who
termed the exhibit anti-Semitic, has waged a two-year campaign to prevent the
permanent cartoon and photo exhibit to be displayed on the central square in
Cologne.
He filed a criminal complaint against Walter Herrmann, the
organizer of the anti-Israel exhibit, for violating Paragraph 130, an
anti-hate-crime law that bars incitement against minority groups. Cologne’s
prosecutor rejected the complaint.