The local section of a human rights organisation wants to remove the issue of gender discrimination from the fight against genital mutilation.

And the decision -- following a democratic vote -- to present the plan to the organisation's governing body has sparked a war of words between its members.

Amnesty International's Bermuda Section plans to take a pair of resolutions to the organisation's highest level -- the International Council Meeting.

They must be adopted there before they can be endorsed and implemented by the organisation.

AI's director LeYoni Junos said the contentious resolution concerns the removal of sex distinction from AI's existing stand opposing female genital mutilation which was adopted in 1995.

The effect of this resolution would be to oppose all forms of male genital mutilation, including male circumcision, as human rights violations.

The second resolution calls for the organisation to expand its work opposing female genital mutilation.

Both resolutions were passed during a general meeting on July 24 following heated debate, she revealed.

Ms Junos was speaking to The Royal Gazette about the subject -- which was intended to be kept an internal matter until the resolutions were adopted -- after it was made public in an article by a local paper last week.

In that article, former AI director Lena Ostroff said: "For Amnesty International to take a position that the circumcision of male infants is a form of torture is completely misguided, in my opinion, and extremely offensive to people of the Jewish faith.'' She has been joined in her criticism of the decision by fellow AI member Claire Smith who declared: "As I read through the AI newsletter, words like torture, rape, murder, death, life imprisonment are scattered throughout the pages.

"Somehow, male circumcision seems a little out of place.'' Ms Junos noted that there were several types of male genital mutilation ranging from incision, a cut on the foreskin, to subincision, slitting the entire underside of the penis lengthwise to the urethra and splaying it out.

She said mistaken beliefs surrounding male circumcision included supposed health benefits, that an infant did not feel pain and that the foreskin did not have any purpose.

There were no national medical organisations in the world which recommended circumcision nor were there any proven health benefits, she pointed out.

And King Edward VII Memorial Hospital consultant urologist Charles Dyer and the executive director of Boston's Circumcision Resource Centre, Ronald Goldman, backed her argument.

Dr. Dyer said the practice was a cultural one, not a medical one, and he refused to perform circumcisions for ethical reasons.

Meanwhile Dr. Goldman said a child being circumcised endured extreme pain and trauma during the cutting and later experienced diminished sexual sensitivity and response.

AI recognised that cutting away any part of the female genitals was a human rights violation, continued Ms Junos.

And since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights required that there should be no distinction of sex in the application of human rights principles, she added, AI must align itself with these accepted international human rights standards.

Ms Junos added that circumcision, like other forms of genital mutilation, was forced on a child and therefore violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

While the proponents of the resolution did not seek to equate female genital mutilation with that of males due to the differences in the severity of the mutilation of each, "the violation starts with the first cut'', noted Dr.

Goldman.

Opponents to the resolution argue that passing it will only serve to restrict religious groups such as members of the Jewish and Moslem faith who require newborn infants to be circumcised.

But Ms Junos pointed out that AI's stand against female genital mutilation also conflicted with cultures which practised it for religious reasons.

And she stressed that freedom to practice a religion did not include freedom to harm another human being.

Ms Junos said AI did not have the power or authority to prohibit human rights violations so its positions could only serve to raise awareness and educate people about violations.

Human rights violations would only stop when the people committing them chose to change, she said.