BERLIN - Jewish and Muslim groups protested on Wednesday after a German court banned the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons, Reuters reported. The ban applies to the Cologne region of Germany.

The court in the western city of Cologne handed down the decision on Tuesday in the case of a doctor who was prosecuted for circumcising a four-year-old Muslim boy.

The doctor circumcised the boy in November 2010 and gave him four stitches, the Guardian reported. When the boy started bleeding two days later, his parents took him to Cologne's University hospital, where officials called police. The doctor was ultimately acquitted on the grounds that he had not broken a law.

The court ruled that involuntary religious circumcision should be made illegal because it could inflict serious bodily harm on people who had not consented to it. Male circumcision is part of Jewish and Muslim religious tradition.

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