Press council says columnist 'misled the public' after alleging McGill prof. favoured 'symbolic' circumcision

Montreal -

The Quebec Press Council has condemned a columnist from one of Quebec’s most-read news outlets over false claims that a McGill professor supported “symbolic” circumcision on girls.

“His column is based entirely on inaccurate information that has misled the public,” read the council’s decision on a piece by Richard Martineau, which appeared in Le Journal de Montreal in early 2020.

The council upheld a complaint of “sensationalism” against Martineau, which is defined as “a distortion of facts, excessive exaggeration, or an interpretation that does not represent reality.”

In early 2020, Martineau published a piece called “a worrying ethics specialist” in Le Journal accusing McGill Prof. Daniel Weinstock of advocating that Quebec doctors perform so-called “symbolic” circumcisions during a 2012 conference.

Weinstock had been speaking about the “Seattle compromise,” which involves an incision of a girl’s genitalia rather than a complete circumcision.

The procedure got its name after a 1996 case in which a group of Somali women convinced a medical centre in Seattle to perform it, threatening to take their daughters elsewhere to have a full genital circumcision performed.

“We do the circumcision of Jewish and Muslim boys,” Martineau quotes Weinstock as having said. “Could we offer this community to do something that would only impose a brand on girls? Could we offer this to the Muslim community to avoid the worst?"

However, according to the event transcript, Weinstock was only trying to present the point of view of people that supported the practice, according to a decision from Quebec’s press council.

“To misquote a person in this way, by making him say the opposite of what he said, is a major inaccuracy,” read the ruling.

Shortly after the piece was published, Weinstock was briefly barred from speaking at a forum put on by Quebec’s education ministry on what would replace the now-defunct ethics and religious culture class in Quebec schools.

The province backtracked after complaints from opposition parties, and Weinstock was allowed to attend.

CTV News has reached out to Martineau, Weinstock, and Le Journal de Montreal for comment.

-- Published with files from former CTV Supervising Digital Editor Basem Boshra