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WHAT'S NEW THIS SUNDAY: THREE ON CIRCUMCISION, FROM ZIMBABWE, RWANDA AND GERMANY

Thursday, 28th of June 2012

 

• WHAT’S NEW THIS SUNDAY: THREE ON CIRCUMCISION, FROM ZIMBABWE, RWANDA AND GERMANY
  
• VCT AND CIRCUMCISION FOR ZIMBABWE LEGISLATORS

20 lawmakers undergo voluntary HIV tests

 

The Herald (Harare), Thursday, 21 June 2012 12:00

Peter Matambanadz,o Senior Reporter TWENTY parliamentarians yesterday underwent public voluntary counselling and testing for HIV. The lawmakers took the initiative in their drive to encourage the grassroots to follow suit. Twenty-three Parliament members of staff were also tested. Zimbabwe Parliamentarians against HIV and Aids (Zipah), a voluntary organisation aimed at promoting awareness and fighting stigma associated with HIV and Aids, organised the event. Addressing the participants before undergoing the HIV test, Clerk of Parliament Mr Austin Zvoma hailed the legislators, saying theirs was a landmark initiative. “I want to recognise this landmark initiative that has been spearheaded by Honourable (Blessing) Chebundo and supported by colleagues from across the political divide. “It is a momentous occasion when politicians who are not known to walk their talk are beginning to do that,” Mr Zvoma said. In his welcome remarks, Mr Chebundo, who is the Zipah chairman, said the number of MPs who have voluntarily shown interest in getting tested was growing. He said the Zipah initiative will be a model and encouraged the public to open up about their HIV status and contribute significantly to efforts of fighting the HIV and Aids pandemic. “As MPs we hold high esteemed offices and the public will take heed from us,” he said. Mrs Catharine Sibanda, a counsellor from Population Services International, made a presentation on HIV and Aids and testing and counselling process to the legislators before they were tested. Among the first legislators to be tested were Mr Jeffryson Chitando (Masvingo Central) and Ms Thabitha Khumalo (Bulawayo East), Senator Rorana Muchihwa (Hwata) and her husband Mr Godwin Muchihwa. Mr Chitando, who was the first legislator to be tested, said this will send a strong message to the public. “This is a major initiative by parliamentarians to lead by example in the contribution to combat the spread of HIV and Aids,” Mr Chitando said. He said the public testing will influence thousands of people not only in their constituencies but across Zimbabwe. Mr Chitando indicated his willingness to be circumcised saying it is beneficial in reducing HIV and Aids infections. Ms Khumalo said the public HIV and Aids tests will be a model to the general populace. “The initiative Zipah has taken will be well received by the public and be a model as people will be saying politicians are getting tested. More people will open up about their HIV status,” she said. The media, she said, should act responsibly in covering the campaign and desist from sensationalising it. PSI official Mr Shame Muparutsa said although they were not allowed to disclose the status of an individual, legislators were free to invite and disclose their results to the public at a different forum. The testing and counselling of MPs, which started yesterday, will run until tomorrow and will also see male legislators undergoing circumcision at a makeshift clinic set up at Parliament. Zipah was launched in March this year as part of an immediate response by legislators to the HIV and Aids pandemic. The organisation also works in conjunction with People Living with HIV and Aids, the National Aids Council and other Aids service organisations to disseminate HIV and Aids information in their constituencies. The campaign will also be spread to provincial, district and constituency levels. The Zipah membership currently stands at 175 and 25 Parliament workers who are technical members. Zimbabwe has undertaken several initiatives to fight HIV and Aids resulting in a marked decline in the prevalence rate, which stands at 13,7 percent. RWANDA: W.H.O. COUNTING ON SUCCESS OF RWANDA CIRCUMCISION PROGRAM Rwanda Express (Kigali), 21 June 2012 Also at http://allafrica.com/stories/201206221001.html The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Luis Gomes Sambo visited Rwanda this June 2012, and said that the success of the new circumcision device being tested in Rwanda can be part of the HIV prevention program, and a lesson for all African countries, south of the Sahara. Dr. Sambo was on a four day working visiting to learn more about Rwanda's programs and assess progress on the ground with the view of sharing some success stories with the rest of the continent. He also met President Paul Kagame and congratulated his government for having registered remarkable progress in health care. Sambo said that the new device is likely to improve the way circumcisions are performed and increase on the WHO bid to combat HIV/Aids, which is at a high prevalence on the African continent, especially in the sub-Saharan region Africa has at least 23 million people with HIV and a very high prevalence with 2 million new infections per year. The new circumcision Prepex device, which is a painless and bloodless technique of circumcision, is for the first time being tested and this is happening in Rwanda. The WHO director visited Kanombe military hospital to witness a firsthand experience of how the Prepex device is being used for male circumcision in Rwanda for the last two years. One male patient, Alexis Mugabe, who had received the circumcision treatment, said the procedure was quick and painless. "It took about two minutes and I felt no pain at all," he said, adding that he was confident he would go back to work the following day without problem. Rwanda has launched a major campaign to have men get circumcised especially at a young age. At least 10.000 males have so far been circumcised using the Prepex device. Sambo said that he was also impressed with the significant progress made by Rwanda in the health system, especially at community level.

• GERMAN RULING AGAINST CIRCUMCISING BOYS DRAWS CRITICISM

By NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: New York Times, June 26, 2012

 

BERLIN — A German court in Cologne ruled on Tuesday that circumcising young boys represents grievous bodily harm, a decision that could have significant repercussions for religious groups.

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany condemned the decision as “an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the self-determination of religious communities” and called on the German Parliament to pass legislation protecting circumcision as a religious practice.

The case centered on a 4-year-old boy whose Muslim parents had him circumcised by a doctor, which led to medical complications. Although both Muslims and Jews circumcise infant boys as a religious practice and many other people do so for health reasons, the court found that the child’s “fundamental right to bodily integrity” was more important than the parents’ rights.

According to the court, the religious freedom “would not be unduly impaired” because the child could later decide whether to have the circumcision.

Millions of Muslims call Germany home, as do more than 100,000 Jews, as part of a community that has enjoyed a significant resurgence here. Since World War II, many Germans have been careful to consider Jewish sensitivities as a result of the horrible crimes committed against Jews during the Holocaust in the name of the German Reich.

Jewish leaders reacted furiously to Tuesday’s decision. The central council’s president, Dieter Graumann, called it “outrageous and insensitive,” saying in a statement that circumcision had been practiced worldwide for thousands of years. “In every country in the world this religious right is respected,” Mr. Graumann said.

Germany has no law against male circumcision, as there is against female genital cutting. Experts said that the decision would not be enforceable in other jurisdictions. But the legal uncertainty and threat of possible prosecution could lead doctors to decline to perform the procedure.

The central council said the national Parliament, the Bundestag, should “create legal certainty and thereby protect religious freedom from attacks.”

The decision by the court “places an intolerable burden on the free exercise of religion by Jews and also by Muslims who practice male circumcision as part of their religious faith,” Abraham H. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director in New York, said in a statement.

While the ruling did not appear to have specific anti-Semitic intent, Mr. Foxman said, “its effect is to say, ‘Jews are not welcome.’ ”

Holm Putzke, a criminal law expert at the University of Passau, told the German news agency DPA that the ruling was not binding for other courts, but could send a welcome signal.

“After the knee-jerk outrage has faded away, hopefully a discussion will begin about how much religiously motivated violence against children a society is ready to tolerate,” he said.

• THE REBRANDING OF CIRCUMCISION AS 'CHILD ABUSE' ECHOES THE UGLY ANTI-SEMITISM OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE

By Brendan O'Neill

Excerpted from Daily Telegraph, June 28th, 2012

There are many bad things about the modern atheistic assault on religion. But perhaps the worst thing is its rebranding of certain religious practices as "child abuse". Everything from sending your kid to a Catholic school to having your baby boy circumcised has been redefined by anti-religious campaigners as "abuse". This use of emotionally loaded language to demonise the practices and beliefs of people of faith has reached its ugly and logical conclusion in Germany, where a court has decreed that circumcision for religious purposes causes "bodily harm", against boys who are "unable to give their consent", and therefore should be outlawed.

This is an alarming attack on freedom of religion and on parents' rights to initiate their children into their faith. The court case centred around a four-year-old Muslim boy who was given a very bad circumcision, but the precedent set by the case will of course affect Jews as well as Muslims. And as Germany's Central Council of Jews rightly said, the court's ruling is "an egregious and insensitive measure", which represents "an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in religious communities' right of determination". He points out that Jews have the freedom to circumcise their male children in every country in the world – but soon maybe not in Germany.

Many secularist campaigners are cock-a-hoop about the ruling. They believe their description of circumcision as “child abuse”, as a cruel operation that ignores the UN-guaranteed “rights of the child”, is radical and caring. But in truth it echoes centuries’ worth of nasty anti-circumcision posturing by people who hate certain religious faiths. In Medieval Europe, as pointed out in the book The Covenant of Circumcision, Jew-baiters often depicted circumcision as “cruel and grotesque”. The “barbarous and cruel Jews” were slated for callously snipping off their own boys’ foreskins and for secretly desiring to do the same to Christian boys, too. These “merciless” creatures were described by one English writer as “foreskinne-clippers”. The modern atheist’s description of circumcision as “child abuse”, though used to attack both Jewish and Muslim communities, is only an updated, more PC version of the old anti-Semites' description of it as “cruel and grotesque”.

The labelling of religious practices as “child abuse” is the most cynical tactic in the armoury of today’s so-called New Atheists. They are effectively using children as human shields, as a cover under which they and their beloved state might interfere in both family life and the realm of religious conscience in order to reprimand people for believing the wrong things and carrying our “cruel” practices. If you think they will stop with the banning of a physical practice like circumcision, think again. Richard Dawkins has argued that “bringing [children] up Catholic” is a form of “mental abuse”. Another New Atheist argues that children “have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people’s bad ideas”. What is being attacked here is the fundamental right of parents and communities to pass on their beliefs to their offspring.