Berlin, Germany – Protestors In Berlin Rally Against Circumcision Ruling

Berlin, Germany – Some several hundred people, including Jews, Christians and Muslims, took to the streets of Berlin today to protest the ongoing controversy over religious circumcision which began when a Cologne district court ruled that ritual circumcision “constituted grievous bodily harm.” The BBC writes (http://bbc.in/P5JJDL) that both Muslims and Jews view the Cologne ruling as an attack against their respective religions.

According to the AFP (http://bit.ly/O5ahm9), the protest was held on Berlin’s Bebelplatz, the same site once used by Adolf Hitler to burn books. More than 50 organizations backed the rally, including the German Protestant Church and the Berlin archbishopric. Organizers selected the slogan, “For religious freedom, against criminalization and paternalism,” (http://bit.ly/RsCU2z) and many protestors draped themselves in Israeli flags or came dressed in traditional Orthodox Jewish garb (http://bit.ly/O5ahm9).

German diplomats say the outcry has proven “disastrous” for Germany’s image abroad, especially given the country’s history of Nazism. Dieter Graumann, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said it is “unbearable that we Jews are being branded as child tormentors and that Jewish life is being presented as illegitimate in some way” (http://bit.ly/RsCU2z). He also said he can “well understand” the feelings of his predecessor, Charlotte Knobloch, who said last week that the situation German Jews now face is as critical as it was in 1945.

Last week, the city of Berlin announced that circumcision can only be performed if both parents give written consent and are informed of the risks. Parents must also provide evidence of “religious motivation and religious necessity of the circumcision” if the child is not old enough to make his own decision regarding circumcision. An estimated four million Muslims and over 200,000 Jews live in Germany (http://bit.ly/O5ahm9)