BERLIN, (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Germany could become a laughing stock if it fails to overturn a district court ban on circumcision that has enraged Jews and Muslims. Merkel’s government has already criticised the Cologne court ruling and promised a new law to protect the right to circumcise male infants, but the conservative leader’s strong comments underline how sensitive Germany is to charges of intolerance because of its Nazi past.
“I do not want Germany to be the only country in the world where Jews cannot practise their rituals. Otherwise we will become a laughing stock,” the Bild daily quoted Merkel as telling a closed meeting of her Christian Democrats (CDU).
Joerg van Essen, parliamentary floor leader of Merkel’s junior coalition partner the Free Democrats, told the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper that the new law would be introduced in the autumn.
The main political parties represented in Germany’s parliament were negotiating the text of a resolution late on Tuesday that would exempt from punishment circumcision of under-age boys, parliamentary sources told Reuters.
