US House passes bill protecting circumcision, ritual slaughter

A bill unanimously approved by the US House of Representatives would extend religious protections to advocates of circumcision and ritual slaughter as well as atheists, addressing what its sponsors describe as an increase in religious persecution in recent years

Smith is the chairman of the House subcommittee on human rights, and as a co-chairman of the Helsinki Committee, the congressional panel that monitors human rights overseas, has made the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe a focus.

The bill integrates the 1998 law’s protections into US national security priorities, mandating that the ambassador at large for religious freedom – currently Rabbi David Saperstein, a veteran Reform movement leader — report directly to the secretary of state. It also adds new requirements for presidential reporting to Congress on religious freedom violations and training for diplomats in identifying violations of religious freedoms.

• requires that international religious freedom policies must be integrated into national security, immigration, rule of law and other relevant U.S. foreign policy priorities;
  
• creates a Designated Persons List of individuals sanctioned for participating or directing religious freedom abuses;
  
• expands diplomatic training on international religious freedom for all State Department diplomats;
  
• creates a "tier system" for International Religious Freedom reports on countries of particular concern and a special watch list—similar to the tier system used in the Trafficking in Persons Report;
  
• requires annual presidential designations and actions on countries with severe religious freedom abuses;
  
• gives the president the authority to designate "non-state actors" as severe violators of international religious freedom; and
  
• requires that the ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom will report directly to the Secretary of State.
  

Authorizes the President to take specified actions against foreign persons: (1) responsible for committing or supporting systemic violations of religious freedom

Steffen Wasmund schrieb:

das dem amerikanischen Präsidenten die Möglichkeit der Sanktionsverhängung gegen Länder ermöglicht

US State Department schrieb:

In October the Kassel Regional Court in Hesse rejected a family’s appeal to be allowed to home-school their children on religious grounds. The family argued mandatory school attendance exposed their children to pornographic images during sex education classes. The court upheld a lower court’s fine of 700 euros ($964) per parent for failing to send their children to school, but the family stated it planned to continue to home-school despite the ruling. The family appealed the decision with the higher Frankfurt Regional Court.

On September 11, the Federal Administrative Court ruled a 13-year-old Muslim student from Hesse must participate in mandatory school swimming classes, despite her objections the swimwear violated her religious freedom. The court ruled the student had the option of wearing modest swimwear. The court denied her claim that forcing her to participate with students wearing less modest swimsuits violated her religious freedom, stating it could not dismiss social realities to protect an individual’s religious beliefs.

In September the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled against exempting a seventh-grade student from Bocholt from viewing a screen adaptation of the book Krabat, by Ottfried Preussler, during German classes. The student’s parents, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, had argued the film depicted practices of “black magic,” which their religion did not allow. Although a lower court had ruled the request for exempting individual students from school lessons was justified, the higher court revised the ruling, emphasizing that exemption was possible only in the case of “serious impairment of religious interests.”

On October 21, the family court in Bavaria upheld the removal of six children of
members of the Twelve Tribes religious community in Klosterzimmern from the
custody of their parents and placed them in foster care. Bavarian authorities had
taken the six children into protective custody in September 2013, along with 36
other children, in response to allegations of child abuse due to the community’s
practice of corporal punishment, a practice not sanctioned by federal law. In court,
at least one of the families cited Christian scripture to argue that their actions were
faith-based.

US State Department schrieb:

Jewish NGOs such as the Central Council of Jews provided input and assistance on a variety of government-sponsored tolerance education programs focusing on anti-Semitism and xenophobia. They often played a significant role in the development of legislation affecting religious group, such as the ritual circumcision law.

"Circumcising Europe" schrieb:

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Forman has been warning European governments...
That State has undertaken this campaign is encouraging. If only it could persuade the administration to be as protective of religious practices at home as it is abroad.

The Obama administration’s anti-Semitism monitor has added an issue to his office’s portfolio: defending circumcision in Europe.

...they would have done what Hitler wanted to do