[Notes added to previous posts:
- Many proponents of MGM, in the Jewish community and elsewhere, support MGM partly on the grounds of alleged potential or real health benefits, to men and/or their sexual partners. Does science support that position? For the answer to that question, we refer you to a paper co-authored by Brian D Earp, a scientist and ethicist at the University of Oxford – here.]
- On 22 March we staged the largest anti-MGM protest ever held in the UK, outside the Thornhill Clinic, Luton – the largest private circumcision clinic in the UK. 25% of the population of Luton are Muslims. Our blog piece on the matter is here, a video (9:19) of the event here.]
Tomorrow we’ll be protesting at a number of locations in Golders Green, peacefully as always, and we invite you to join us. We expect they will be our most impactful andprotests yet. People from the mainstream media will be attending, some taking video recordings and still photographs. We’ll be bringing our own recording devices, some new display materials, and new leaflets.
Please email me mike@j4mb.org.uk if you plan to join us. I need to keep the police informed of expected numbers.
The Golder Green protests are among a number taking place before the London Conference. One of the speakers at the conference will be the American researcher Tim Hammond, who’ll be giving an update of the findings of the Global Survey of Circumcision Harm.
Our last three protests have been successful, and attracted increasing numbers of supporters – the first outside the Conservative party conference (October 2015), the second in Parliament Square on International Men’s Day (November 2015), the third recently in Luton, outside the Thornhill Clinic, the leading private clinic in the UK where male minors’ genitals are mutilated on non-therapeutic grounds for financial gain. The third protest was the largest-ever anti-MGM protest ever held in the UK.
We would recommend that people in the Jewish community – and outside it – who are prepared to explore the case against circumcision visit a website with no connection to this one, Jews Against Circumcision. From the website:
We are a group of educated and enlightened Jews who realize that the barbaric, primitive, torturous, and mutilating practice of circumcision has no place in modern Judaism.
Rabbi Moses Maimonides himself acknowledged that circumcision is done to desensitize the penis and curb masturbation.
Jews are some of the smartest people in the world. We are 1/3rd of 1% of the population, yet we hold 33% of Nobel prizes. We are smart enough to understand that mutilating a little boys’ penis is not an acceptable practice in modern times.
We shall be protesting outside at least two locations tomorrow, starting at 1pm:
– we’ll protest outside the clinic where circumcisions are performed by Dr Martin Harris, who was recently added by A Voice for Men to its Known Genital Mutilators directory. We see from his website that he charges £395.00 to mutilate baby boys’ genitals. The clinic is the Temple Fortune Health Centre, 23 Temple Fortune Lane, London NW11 7TE. A map of the area is here. The clinic is in an appropriately shabby building, despite being in a prosperous area:
– after a time outside the clinic, we’ll walk down the Finchley Road to the offices of The Jewish Chronicle – 28 St Albans Lane, London NW11 7QE – very near Golders Green tube station. A map of the area is here and the walk should take around 15 minutes. Turn into St Alban Lane, before a charity shop. The offices are visible from Finchley Road:
A more close-up image of the offices:
We plan then to protest outside Golders Green tube station, catching the rush hour, ending at 6pm.
Another protest will be over 1pm – 6pm on Wednesday 1 June, outside the Home Office – 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF – because the Home Office is responsible for the police, and the police (acting with the CPS) aren’t bringing prosecutions against the people carrying out the criminal offence of MGM. In the Home Office response to our FOI request last year, the department didn’t deny MGM is illegal, but evaded the question of why it doesn’t prosecute the criminals carrying out the procedure. A map of the area is here.
The final pre-conference protest will be over 1pm – 6pm on Wednesday 15 June, outside the Head Office of the NSPCC – Weston House, 42 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NH. A map of the area is here. An email exchange in our possession proves that the NSPCC couldn’t care less about this unnecessary, cruel, and illegal procedure being inflicted on so many male minors in the UK every year.