In 125 BC John Hyrcanus conquered Edom, which the Romans called Idumea; and the Idumeans were forcibly converted to Judaism, by threat of exile or death, depending on the source.
[26] The Mishnah (compiled about 200 AD) is silent on this point, whereas the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (written at the end of the fourth century or later) suggests that Jews might indeed possess uncircumcised slaves.
[29] In the aftermath of the 1780 Battle of Pollilur, 7,000 British soldiers were held imprisoned by Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan in the fortress of Seringapatnam.
[30] Cromwell Massey, who kept a secret diary during his captivity, wrote: "I lost with the foreskin of my yard all those benefits of a Christian and Englishman which were and ever shall be my greatest glory.
James Bristow, a teenage artilleryman, revenged himself by circumcising dogs, believing that this would harm the religious feelings of the Muslim warders.
The prospect of punishment did not deter him, because "compelling us to undergo an abhorred operation [was] so base and barbarous an act of aggression, that it was impossible to reflect on it with temper.
[33] In 1784, when Tipu returned from Mangalore, he brought back tens of thousands of Mangalorean Catholics from Kanara and subjected them to forced circumcision.
"[35] Asia News reported in 2004 that the Justice and Peace Commission of Lahor spoke out against young non-Muslim men in Pakistan being converted and circumcised against their will.
[36] In 2005, the Gulf Times discussed a case of forced circumcision of Nepalese boys in Mumbai in the context of sex trade in large Indian cities.
"[40] In Iraq in 2003, shortly after the fall of the Saddam regime, the 35 families who made up the Mandean community in Falluja were ordered at gunpoint to adopt Islam; the men were forcibly circumcised.
"[42] In 2014, after the exodus of the Christians from Mosul and the Yazidis from Mount Sinjar, it was reported that forced circumcisions taking place were conducted by the Islamic State.
Rawlins later reported that, after being taken to Algiers, two younger men were "by force and torment ... compelled ... to turn Turks," which means that they were forcibly circumcised.
The Portuguese Friar Jaono dos Sanctos claimed that, annually in Algiers in the 1620s, more than nine hundred Christian slaves were converted to Islam, "besides about fifty boys yearly circumcised against their wills.
[56] Marco Polo, in his Travels, relates how a Christian king of Ethiopia took revenge on the Sultan of Aden, who had forcibly circumcised a bishop.
[62] In September 2010, at Malaba, West Kenya, a 21-year-old Teso man was lured to a hotel, drugged, smeared with fermented millet flour and was being led away by several Bukusu to be circumcised when the police intervened.
Three weeks previously, village neighbours in Aedomoru sub location in Teso north armed themselves with clubs and prevented a 35-year-old man from being forcibly circumcised.
[63] In 1999, a woman who was feared throughout the Vaal Triangle district of South Africa, controlled a gang of kidnappers that abducted young people, forcibly circumcising the boys and extorting ransoms from their parents for their release.
The report in the Cape Argus noted, Xhosa culture allows people to forcibly circumcise boys deemed to be past the age of initiation...
Forcing people do undergo the ancient ritual ... has, in recent times, caused concern among human rights organisations... (In) one instance two Rastafarians objected to the procedure on religious grounds.
He laid a charge of unfair discrimination on the grounds of his religious beliefs, seeking an apology from his father and the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa.
[69] According to Thembela Kepe, traditional leaders allege that the ban on forced circumcision is "a violation of cultural rights enshrined in the Constitution.
[73] As discussed by anthropologist Suzette Heald and other scholars, the Gisu (alternatively, Bagishu) of Uganda "take pride in not tolerating uncircumcised men."
[74] Voice of America, referring to the same practice, reports: "Among the Bagishu, uncircumcised men are treated with contempt; they are not allowed in society and in most cases they are seen as failing to get local women for marriage.
[84] According to Milica Z. Bookman, the breakup of Yugoslavia "was extremely violent, producing some two million refugees, over 100,000 killed, and evidence of gang rape, impaling, dismemberment and forced circumcision.
"[85] The US Department of State reported that an American surgeon in Bosnia for two weeks alleged that irregular Muslim and Mujahedin troops "had routinely performed crude, disfiguring, nonmedical circumcisions on Bosnian Serb soldiers."
"[86] A man was yesterday forcibly circumcised by traditional surgeons in Mumias-Butere District as police watched helplessly.Mr John Otieko... was cornered by a mob ... stripped naked, frog-marched to a nearby river and covered with clay ... then brought to Mayoni trading centre ... to be circumcised as an excited crowd watched.Efforts by four traffic police officers who were manning a roadblock on the highway a few metres away from the scene failed when the crowd started stoning them.
The victim was then left bleeding at the scene.District Commissioner Ernest Munyi expressed shock at the incident and told police to crack down on traditional surgeons involved in forcible circumcision.