Required community service against preacher for advising female circumcision Inland

The suspect denies that he is in favor of female circumcision. His comments in one of his videos were purely informative and did not express his own opinion. “I distance myself from it,” he declared at the court in The Hague on Friday.

According to the Public Prosecution Service, there was a web lecture on the mosque’s site since autumn 2015, in which the preacher can be seen. In the video he says, “Circumcision is mandatory for men and recommended for women. It is not mandatory for women. The wisdom behind this is to cleanse the penis from the impurities that are on the foreskin and become in the woman her appetites less. “

Female circumcision is a major problem in the Netherlands, the public prosecutor argued. It is estimated that 41,000 women are circumcised in the Netherlands, of whom 15,000 have undergone the most extreme form of circumcision. According to the Public Prosecution Service, 4,200 girls are at risk of circumcision every year, which often happens in the country of origin.

“The video arouses the idea that female circumcision is recommended. It is a recommendation from a professional associated with one of the largest mosques in the Netherlands with an orthodox reputation that appeals to many young people,” said the public prosecutor.

The man did not know at the time that female circumcision is a criminal offense, he said. “I translated a text from an Islamic book, a simplified jurisprudence of the Koran. Without thinking I have read and translated it. I did not go into it. I am also not familiar with female circumcision. Female circumcision does not occur at all in the Turkish and Moroccan communities, nobody does that. I am also married and have children, I never spoke to my wife or sister about it. “

The suspect says that he has already been convicted by all media attention and that his career has been destroyed. “I am not a criminal or agitator. I was studying Islamic spiritual care, but I was unable to finish it, because I was not hired for an internship anywhere.”

LIVE – Reporter Saskia Belleman is present at the lawsuit. Follow the case through her tweets.

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