Should kosher/halal slaughter be illegal?

Posted by Jack at 5:19pm Jun 28 '11
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The Netherlands' Parliament has voted to ban all halal and kosher animal slaughter, with exceptions only granted on a case-by-case basis wherein one must prove scientifically that the animal does not suffer more than it normally would.

The legislation was tabled by the tiny Animal Rights Party but it quickly won cross-party support in a country where traditional religion, especially Islam, has been accused of being out of step with liberal Dutch values.

"This way of killing causes unnecessary pain to animals. Religious freedom cannot be unlimited," said Marianne Thieme, the party's leader.

"For us religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins."

As you could probably guess, Dutch Muslims and Jews have a major problem with this.

Binyomin Jacobs, the country's Chief Rabbi, has compared the ban to anti-Semitic laws enacted by during the Nazi occupation that led to the death of 104,000 Dutch Jews in the Holocaust.

"One of the first measures taken during the occupation was the closing of kosher abattoirs," he said.
...

"There was no reason for passing this law," said Imam Mahmut of the El Tawheed mosque told Reuters.

"This is a political decision. Who has the authority to determine whether the way of killing animals is good or not?"

It never even occurred to me before, but evidently both kosher and halal standards state that the animal must be fully conscious when slaughtered. And also, it's already banned in Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland.





Couldn't decide whether to put this here or on Holy War. It was decided by the flip of a coin old used CD.