Violation of Human Rights

On their way to the First Crusade, bands of crusaders led by Count Emicho attacked the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, giving them the choice to be baptized or die. About 2,000 Jews were killed, and many killed themselves and their children rather than convert (Rhineland massacres). Some local bishops tried, mostly in vain, to protect them.

During the Albigensian Crusade, called by Pope Innocent III against the Cathar “heretics” of southern France, crusaders stormed the town of Béziers and killed its inhabitants, Cathars and Catholics alike. The papal legate Arnaud Amalric reported to the Pope that “our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age”, and put the number killed at almost 20,000 (Massacre at Béziers). A later chronicler attributed to him the famous order “Kill them all; God will know His own” — probably apocryphal, but a fitting summary of what happened.

In August 1572, Catholic mobs in Paris, and then in other French cities, slaughtered Protestant Huguenots; estimates range from about 2,000 to 30,000 dead (St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre). When the news reached Rome, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a Te Deum sung in thanksgiving, and struck a commemorative medal inscribed Ugonottorum strages (“the slaughter of the Huguenots”).

When British India was divided along religious lines into India and Pakistan, Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims massacred each other on a vast scale. Estimates of the dead range from 200,000 to 2 million, and between 12 and 20 million people were displaced (Partition of India). Neighbors who had lived side by side for generations became killers once religious identity became the line that divided “us” from “them”.

The prophet Samuel tells King Saul in God’s name: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Samuel 15:3). When Saul spares the king and the best of the livestock, God rejects him as king for disobeying. The Torah also commands to “blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven” (Deuteronomy 25:19), a passage read aloud in synagogues every year on the Sabbath before Purim.

Regarding the cities of the Canaanite nations, the Torah commands: “thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them” (Deuteronomy 20:16–17). At Jericho, “they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old” (Joshua 6:21). After the war against Midian, Moses is angry that the women were spared, and orders: “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him” (Numbers 31:17).

Rabbinic tradition largely neutralized these commands in practice. The Mishnah states that “Sanheriv [Sennacherib], the king of Assyria, has long since come up and mingled all the nations” (Yadayim 4:4), so that the ancient peoples can no longer be identified, and many authorities held that the command applies only to a king or to the community as a whole, never to individuals (Amalek). Yet the texts were never renounced as immoral: they are still presented as the word of God, who once did command the killing of infants. And from time to time, extremists and politicians invoke “Amalek” against present-day enemies.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), mostly between infancy and age 15, in more than 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. In its “mildest” form (Type 1), the clitoral glans and/or the clitoral hood are partially or totally removed; in the most severe form, the vaginal opening is also sewn nearly shut. The consequences include severe pain, bleeding, infections, sexual dysfunction, complications in childbirth, and psychological trauma — and sometimes death. The WHO states that “FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women”.

FGM predates Islam and is not mentioned in the Quran, and it is also practiced by some Christian communities in Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya (Religious views on FGM). But in many Muslim communities it is performed as a religious act. Its supporters cite a hadith in which the Prophet told a woman who performed circumcisions in Medina: “Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband” (Sunan Abi Dawud 5271) — although Abu Dawud himself, and most hadith scholars after him, considered this hadith weak. The Shafi’i school of Islamic law, followed in parts of Egypt, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, classifies female circumcision as obligatory, and the other Sunni schools as recommended or honorable. The internal tension: in 2007, after 12-year-old Badour Shaker died during the procedure, Egypt’s Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa, declared: “It’s prohibited, prohibited, prohibited” (NBC News), and Al-Azhar’s Supreme Council of Islamic Research ruled that FGM has no basis in Islamic law, and is sinful (FGM/C Research Initiative).

The Torah commands: “he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations”, and “the uncircumcised man child … that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant” (Genesis 17:12–14). So in the brit milah, the foreskin of an eight-day-old baby is cut off, usually without anesthesia, by a mohel who in many cases is not a physician. Some ultra-Orthodox communities also practice metzitzah b’peh, in which the mohel sucks the blood from the wound with his mouth. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that between 2000 and 2011, 11 newborn boys in New York City were infected with herpes after this practice; 10 of them were hospitalized, and 2 died. Two of the survivors suffered brain damage (JTA), and more cases have been reported since. One of the dead was a two-week-old baby who died in September 2011 at a Brooklyn hospital (ABC News).

Circumcision (khitan) is not mentioned in the Quran, but is based on the hadith and tradition, and is almost universal in Muslim communities (Circumcision in Islam). There is no fixed age: it ranges from the seventh day after birth until puberty, and is often performed around the age of seven. Some follow the age of Ishmael, the forefather of the Arabs, who according to the Bible was circumcised at 13 (Genesis 17:25). Unlike an infant, a boy of that age is fully aware of what is being done to him, and yet has no real ability to refuse.

In May 2012, the regional court of Cologne, Germany, ruled that the circumcision of a four-year-old Muslim boy was a criminal bodily injury, since the parents’ right to raise their child in their religion is limited by the child’s right to physical integrity and self-determination. The court noted (in our translation) that “the child’s body is permanently and irreparably changed by the circumcision”, contrary to “the child’s interest in later deciding for himself on his religious affiliation” (ruling 151 Ns 169/11, in German). (The doctor himself was acquitted, since he could not have known that the act was illegal.) After protests by Jewish and Muslim organizations, the German parliament passed a law in December 2012 explicitly permitting the circumcision of boys (§ 1631d BGB, in German).

In 2013, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in Resolution 1952, expressed its particular worry about “a category of violation of the physical integrity of children, which supporters of the procedures tend to present as beneficial to the children themselves despite clear evidence to the contrary”, including “the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons”. That same year, the children’s ombudsmen of the five Nordic countries, together with pediatric experts, declared that “Circumcision, performed without a medical indication, on a person who is incapable of giving consent, violates fundamental medical-ethical principles, not least because the procedure is irreversible, painful and may cause serious complications”, and asked their governments to “ensure that boys are given the opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not they want to be circumcised.”

The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) stated in 2010 that “Non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors conflicts with the child’s right to autonomy and physical integrity”, and that “There are good reasons for a legal prohibition of non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors, as exists for female genital mutilation.” It did not call for a ban, however, fearing that the procedure would then be performed by unqualified people, with more serious complications.