Unlicensed Circumciser Arrested in France After Children’s Complications

The circumciser was indicted by an investigating judge of the Pontoise court (Val-d’Oise) for having performed circumcisions on two children aged 6 and 5, resulting in complications. "It all started in March 2019. There are parents of a 6-year-old child who are worried about their son’s healing after the circumcision. They go to the emergency room of the Rennes hospital, where the doctors judge that the number of sutures is insufficient. There were three. They estimate that there should have been six, but there is no rule in this matter. And finally, they left the scar as is," explains Me Nicolas Oudet, Hocine’s lawyer.

The medical staff of the said hospital made a report about him to the public prosecutor’s office and the Order of Physicians. A judicial investigation was thus opened and led to the arrest of Hocine on May 14 at his home in Villiers-le-Bel (Val-d’Oise), then to his placement in police custody for forty-eight hours. The 37-year-old man claims to have "never been worried" nor "received a call or a summons regarding [his] profession". The circumciser is indicted for illegal practice of medicine, involuntary injuries, undeclared work and money laundering (non-declaration of his income and his activity). Finally, he was placed under judicial supervision, reports Le Parisien.

On his website, Hocine presents himself as a "circumcision practitioner". A title that could be confusing to the public, believes Anne-Marie Trarieux, president of the ethics and deontology section of the Order of Physicians. "On my website, I really played the card of transparency and honesty. I never said I was a doctor. And when people call me doctor, I correct them right away and explain to them," clarifies Hocine, who specifies that he followed a training in 2017 in Morocco to become a circumciser, sanctioned by a diploma. The young man claims to have already performed "several thousand circumcisions in France and abroad" and "more than a thousand home interventions in the Île-de-France region".

"There is no regulation on the practice of ritual circumcision. No one can explain to us why it is illegal. Otherwise, we have to indict all the mohalim in France (name given to circumcisers in the Jewish religion, editor’s note)," says Nicolas Oudet. The Order of Physicians confirms: "Circumcision is an accepted practice, but is not the subject of any text". In the end, Hocine "cannot prove that he has the right, but we cannot prove that he does not have the right," concludes his lawyer.