Website faces the cut

"They wanted to be men but lost their manhood instead."

These are the words of Dutch doctor Dingeman Rijken during his testimony to the Film and Publication Board, which will decide today whether to censor his website, Ulwaluko.co.za.

He built the site to show why traditional circumcision has led to 825 deaths in Eastern Cape since 1995.

Rijken worked at Holy Cross Hospital, in Flagstaff, Eastern Cape, last year and treated hundreds of injured initiates.

His site says: "Poor hygienic practices are abundant. Most attendants do not use gloves ... bandages are reused on different initiates."

The website has had 180000 views in the past three weeks, with 6000 from South Africa.

The Community Development Foundation of SA complained about the site, citing the pictures of mutilated penises as pornographic.

The board ruled that the site was a "bona fide scientific publication with great educative value".

But the foundation appealed. The board will make a final decision on Ulwaluko today.

Nkululeko Nxesi, the foundation's CEO, asked the board to shut down the website immediately for :

• Showing pornographic pictures;
• Breaking patient-doctor confidentiality by publishing pictures of male genitals on the website; and
• Violating Xhosa cultural rights and undermining custom.

Rijken said every patient whose damaged penis was shown on the website had given his consent.

In his response, Rijken said: "The traditional leadership strives to censor this particular website because it exposes their negligence in a very clear manner."

He also argues that "It is downright preposterous to equate pictures of injured penises to pornography.

"Pornography is intended to stimulate erotic feelings."

In response to the complaint that the website undermined "cultural rights and undermines the custom", Rijken said: "The deaths and mutilations undermine the custom and violate cultural rights."

He said that because traditional circumcision had led to deaths, more boys would start turning their backs on the cultural ritual.

Nxesi told The Times that the traditional leaders with whom the foundation was trying to work to stop dangerous circumcisions were "put off" by the website.

"They feel a white person is undermining their culture," Nxesi said.

He said the website drove illegal circumcision schools underground and made it harder to intervene and prevent unnecessary deaths.

Rijken has said he will remove the website after traditional leadership "transforms the ritual and stops it from leading to unnecessary deaths".