Halal Meat To Be Banned in UK????

[N.O.R.F]

The case for:

 

'The cut across the neck leads to very significant pain before insensibility'

The case for a ban

Martin Potter

11 June 2003

 

 

Perhaps it was inevitable that the publication of a report on the welfare of animals during slaughter, produced by the Farm Animal Welfare Council, would raise again the conflict of religious freedom and the protection of animal welfare.

 

The paradox is that the traditional slaughter practices of Jews and Muslims almost certainly originated out of a respect for animal welfare, as well as for food hygiene requirements. While the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals believes in respect for religious beliefs and practices, it also believes that animals must be killed in the most humane conditions possible.

 

Modern stunning instruments in the hands of highly skilled slaughterers can render an animal unconscious immediately. We, therefore, have the ability to give those animals reared for food a quick and painless death. Slaughter by the Jewish and Muslim methods involves cutting the throat with a very sharp knife without any form of prior stunning. But yesterday's report from the Government's advisory body on farm animal welfare presents evidence that indicates this method can result in cattle taking as long as two minutes to become insensible. The report also concludes that the cut across the neck leads to very significant pain and distress before the insensibility supervenes.

 

So what is the way forward? Would it be unreasonable to suggest Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK review their slaughter practices in the light of the findings of this new report? Many Muslim leaders now accept the principle that animals may be stunned, with the result that almost 90 per cent of animals killed in the UK for halal meat are unconscious when the cut to the throat is made. In New Zealand, any animal slaughtered by the kosher method is stunned shortly after the cut has been made.

 

These examples show some degree of flexibility in religious interpretation. Progress can only be made if the two sides - religious leaders and those seeking welfare improvements - respect each other's views and, having considered the recommendations in this report, jointly search for an acceptable way forward.

 

Martin Potter is head of the RSPCA's Farm Animals Department and a member of the Farm Animal Welfare Council

 

 

Muslims unite with Jews to defend animal slaughter rites

By Paul Vallely

11 June 2003

 

 

It was business as usual yesterday at Hymarks Kosher Meats Ltd in Cheadle, one of the hubs of the Manchester Jewish community. In the cool cabinet untrussed chickens sprawled beside a selection of meats which was positively international in its range - lamb chops, marinaded steaks, pale chicken sausages, minty lamb kebabs, Italian meatballs. There was no sign of controversy, either among the customers nor the jolly chap behind the counter with a skullcap perched on the back of his head and a large red apron circumnavigating his ample girth.

 

Elsewhere, the world was getting altogether more exercised about what united the various kosher meats on display - the ritual method of slaughter which had brought them to the butcher's slab.

 

The time has come to repeal the law which exempts the products consumed by religious communities from the provisions of The Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995, a government advisory committee recommended yesterday.

 

The proposal has caused outrage among the Jewish and Muslim communities. The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), which advises the Government on how to avoid cruelty to livestock, says the way 9 million farm animals die each year to produce kosher and halal meat causes severe suffering. All slaughter without pre-stunning should be banned immediately, it has advised.

 

"It is not something we want to say anything about," said the man at Hymarks Kosher Meats. He did not want any hint of controversy to invade his stacks of chopped herring, pickled cucumbers and matzos.

 

Understandably, say animal rights activists. "Scientific research shows that animals whose throats are cut while they are fully conscious can suffer terribly over relatively lengthy periods as they bleed to death," said Peter Stevenson, political and legal director of Compassion in World Farming, which was so quick off the mark that it actually published its support the day before the report came out.

 

The report says: "After the cut has been made, the animal must remain restrained until it is bled out before being released, shackled and hoisted." A cow can take up to two minutes to bleed to death. "To say that it doesn't suffer is quite ridiculous," said Dr Judy MacArthur Clark, who chaired the committee that produced the recommendations.

 

The ground is set for a major battle, with both Jewish and Muslim groups - in a loud and unusual union of purpose - launching a twofold defence. They produce scientists who argue that religious slaughter is, in fact, less cruel than stunning. And they ring alarm bells at what they see as an assault on religious minorities. "One of the first enactments of the Nazis in 1933 was to outlaw the Jewish method of slaughter," warned Rabbi Yehuda Brodie, registrar of the Manchester Beth Din.

 

The row turns on the insistence in both religions - which have common roots in acknowledging Abraham as the father of their faith - that believers should not eat meat from any animal which has undergone any harm, injury or hurt in dying. They argue that their ancient method of slaughter - severing the animal's neck and hoisting it so that all the blood drains from the body - causes the beast to feel virtually nothing.

 

"With a surgically sharp knife all the vessels in the neck are severed and all blood cut off swiftly from the brain so the animal loses consciousness very rapidly," said Rabbi Brodie. In London, the president of the Jewish Board of Deputies, Henry Grunwald QC, backed the opinion. "Many scientific experts have confirmed that the Jewish method of religious slaughter is at least as humane as any other method of slaughter," he said.

 

Opponents of the practice see it as self-evident that stunning animals before they are killed is more humane. But the Abrahamic faiths insist not.

 

On the contrary, stunning is "a form of torture", according to Dr Abdul Majid Katme, who delivered a paper on the subject at the Universities' Federation of Animal Welfare and is now spokesman on halal meat and food for the Muslim Council of Britain. Rabbi Brodie argues: "There can be no doubt that every animal feels pain from the stunning, and moreover some 14,000 animals a year are stunned badly or wrongly."

 

The opposition is rooted in something else. Numerous medical studies have shown that stunning leads to the retention of a significant amount of blood in the meat, said Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain. The consumption of blood is forbidden to both Muslims and Jews. "Scientific tests have shown that when an animal is stunned, small blood vessels rupture," said Dr Katme, "leaving meat tainted with blood which is full of germs, bacteria and waste material."

 

The FAWC report disputes this. "Recent research shows that there is no significant difference in the rate of blood loss from a throat cut with or without stunning," it says. In any event, under optimal conditions, only about half the blood is drained at slaughter; the rest resides in the viscera and muscles, the report adds.

 

There is another complication, as was highlighted yesterday by Nadeem Shaikh, a licensed slaughterer and poultry wholesaler who processes 10,000 live birds a day in north Manchester. "Some 95 per cent of animals in halal abattoirs are stunned before killing," he says. "Not a fatal stun as in non-halal abattoirs, but a lesser level to control the animal.

 

"Non-stun slaughter is a much lengthier process," he continues. "Animals have to be put in cradles which is time-consuming. It can take a week to kill 500 lambs. But if the stunning is adjusted to a lower level - such that the animal would recover fully if it were not killed immediately afterwards - then that is halal, so long as the man who slaughters is a devout Muslim who says each time the prayer 'Bismillah Allahu akbar,' which means 'Thank you, God, for the meat'."

 

But such partial stunning outrages many Muslims. "That idea is not orthodox," said Dr Shuja Shafi, chairman of the health and medical committee at the Muslim Council of Britain. Dr Katme says: "There can be no stunning at all. Those who argue for it are either ignorant or concerned primarily with money."

 

The slaughterer Nadeem Shaikh, by contrast, brands the "no-stun" group as "extremists". He would probably not dare to tell them of the Muslim abattoir where 7,000 chickens an hour are dispatched by machines with whirling blades, to the accompaniment of a taped prayer, speeded up to match the rate of the mechanised knives - and all with the blessing of the local imam.

 

For all such internal disagreement, what is perhaps most striking about the controversy is the unity it brings to two communities whose relationship is normally characterised by suspicion at the very least. Dr Katme said: "We're happy to see our Jewish friends so strong on this issue."

 

Rabbi Brodie said: "This is an attack on religious freedom itself, by people with a hidden agenda."

 

The animal rights lobby may find that this time it has taken on formidable foes.

 

Ritual Controversy: 'It is a quick and efficient method, not cruel at all'

 

Asid Ali, 34, a halal butcher who has owned Mashallah butchers in Hendon, north London, for four years, said customers yesterday expressed collective disbelief at the prospect of a ban.

 

He said: "I have been a butcher for over 20 years and I believe that it is our right as Muslims to eat halal meat, which is an essential part of Islam. I have taken part in the slaughter of poultry in the past so I know it is a quick and efficient method, not cruel at all.

 

"We feel offended as a community by the suggestion of a ban. When I came to Britain [from Pakistan] as a teenager, halal meat was available to us even then.

 

"Many who have come into the shop today cannot believe that their religious practice will be banned. There are so many laws that regulate our slaughter already, it just makes life more difficult for me to hear this and I fear that it may be damaging to the business as well."

 

Arifa Akbar

 

 

Can u imagine all somalis becoming veggies?lol

[RaMpAgE]

All uk peepz, this doesn't give u the license too eat xaram food.lol

[silent-sistah]

well, this is just another way of them sayignwe fed up with u muslims,,get out our country1

 

 

and hmm, it gives me more reason to stay vegie!

[LadyDotNet]

Salaam

 

Maybe they should highlight articles on how they slaughter their animals - and let the public decide which method reduces suffering..

[Sophist]

I have written a letter to the authority concerned and the Sunday Times, let us hope they will take it seriously. Anyhow, the Jews will not allow it; they shall fight this war for us! what a crazy alliances: politics acquantes a strange bedfellows.

[MD]

Good Job Sophist any word from them yet :rolleyes:

[Ariadne]

Originally posted by silent-sistah:

and hmm, it gives me more reason to stay vegie!

Silent sistah your a vegetarian? really what level are you?

[Valenteenah.]

LoL...animal rights over human rights...only in the UK!

 

I agree wit Sophist. I don't think the Jews will let them do that.

[MiZz_LeXuS]

That's why I am proud to be in Australia...

I feel sorry for Muslims living in UK...

UK People: I will try and send Halal meat to y'all.

[NinBrown]

Al Shaddad Bin Aous has quoted this tradition of the Holy Prophet(P.B.U.H.)

"God calls for mercy in everything, so be meriful when you kill and when you

slaughter, sharpen your blade to relieve its pain".

 

Many allegations have been made that Islamic slaughter is not humane to

animals. However, Professor Schultz and his colleague Dr. Hazim of the

Hanover University, Germany, proved through an experiment, using an

electroencephalograph (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) that *Islamic

slaughter is THE humane method of slaughter* and captive bolt stunning,

practiced in the Western method, causes severe pain to the animal.

 

 

The results surprised many.

 

Experimental Details:

 

1. Several electrodes were surgically implanted at various points of the

skull of all animals, touching the surface of the brain.

 

2. The animals were allowed to recover for several weeks.

 

3. Some animals were slaughtered by making a swift, deep incision with a

sharp knife on the neck cutting the jugular veins and carotid arteries of

both sides; as also the trachea and oesophagus. This is the Halal Method.

 

4. Some animals were stunned using a captive bolt pistol. This is the

'humane slaughter' according to the Western Method.

 

5. During the experiment, EEG and ECG were recorded on all animals to record

the condition of the brain and heart during the course of slaughter as well

as stunning.

 

Results and Discussion:

 

I Halal Method

 

1. The first three seconds from the time of Islamic slaughter as recorded on

the EEG did not show any change from the graph before slaughter, thus

indicating that the animal did not feel any pain during or immediately after

the incision.

 

2. For the following 3 seconds, the EEG recorded a condition of deep sleep -

unconsciousness. This is due to a large quantity of blood gushing out from

the body.

 

3. After the above mentioned 6 seconds, the EEG recorded zero level, showing

no feeling of pain at all.

 

4. As the brain message (EEG) dropped to zero level, the heart was still

pounding and the body convulsing vigorously (a reflex action of the spinal

cord) driving maximum blood from the body: resulting in hygienic meat for

the consumer.

 

II Western Method by C.B.P. Stunning

 

1. The animals were apparently unconscious soon after stunning.

 

2. EEG showed severe pain immediately after stunning.

 

3. The hearts of the animal stunned by C.B.P. stopped beating earlier as

compared to those of the animals slaughtered according to the Halal method

resulting in the retention of more blood in the meat.

 

This in turn is unhygienic for the consumer.

[Thinkerman]

Thx Nino for the above information it was very interesting to read.

[banaadir]

whats funny is they watch millions of childeren die in the middle east and africa of disease, starvation, or american bombs. but they worry about the pain felt by the animal prior to its death.