Iceland debating circumcision ban

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Icelandic lawmakers are considering a law that would ban the circumcision of boys for nonmedical reasons, making it the first European country to do so.

Some religious leaders in Iceland and across Europe have called the bill an attack on religious freedom. It is seen as a particular threat by Jews and Muslims who traditionally embrace the practice.

Under the proposed law, the circumcision of boys — removing the foreskin of the penis, usually when the child is a newborn — would be viewed as equal to female genital mutilation and punishable by up to six years in prison.

“This is fundamentally about not causing unneces- sary harm to a child,” said Silja Dogg Gunnarsdottir, lawmaker for the centrist Progressive Party, who introduced the bill this month.

The proposed law calls circumcision a violation of human rights “since boys are not able to give an informed consent of an irreversible physical intervention.”

Circumcision is not common in Iceland, a small Atlantic Ocean island nation of 340,000 people that is overwhelmingly Lutheran or atheist, with an estimated 100 to 200 Jews and about 1,100 practicing Muslims.

The bill has eight co-sponsors but is considered unlikely to get a majority in the 63-seat Iceland parliament.

It does not have the formal backing of any government ministers but has drawn the support of 422 Icelandic doctors who favor outlawing the 4,000-year-old religious practice.

During Friday services at a prayer space above a home goods store, Imam Salmann Tamimi warned his multinational congregation about the proposed law.

He said circumcision was important to Muslims but even more so to Jews.

“This is an attack on all religion and especially Judaism,” he said.

Rabbi Avi Feldman of the Chabad Jewish Center, who last month became Iceland’s first permanent rabbi since World War II, says he hopes the bill does not become law. In a statement, he said circumcision is a core Jewish practice that serves as a bedrock of Jewish life.

He was hopeful that the “rights for people of all faiths will be preserved and respected.”