- RELIGIOUS SLAUGHTER : the religious exemption for slaughter without pre-stunning and the Farm Animal Welfare in UK

United Kingdom :

RELIGIOUS    SLAUGHTER   
            Author:Christopher Barclay

Contents
1 Legislation 2
2 The extent of religious slaughter 3
3 Halal meat served to everybody 4
4 Does Religious Slaughter cause particular suffering? 5
5 Labelling 6
6 The RSPCA position 8
7 The Farm Animal Welfare Council Report 9
8 The Labour Government’s Response to the 2003 FAWC Report 10
9 The Coalition Government will not ban Halal or Kosher killing 12

This note describes the methods of slaughter used by the Jewish
and Muslim religions. It also contains the recommendation of the
Farm Animal Welfare Council Report to end the religious exemption
for slaughter without pre-stunning.

The Government’s response, in April 2004, rejected that recommendation.
 EU law, like UK law before it, requires farm animals to be stunned
before slaughter. However, there is an exception for religious slaughter.

 The Jewish method of slaughter, Shechita, requires animals not to
be stunned before slaughter. Islamic food rules, for Halal meat, can be
satisfied with animals stunned before slaughter, but there is no definitive
ruling and slaughter without pre-stunning does also take place.
Most Halal meat in the UK comes from animals that were stunned before slaughter.

 There is particular concern about the Islamic festival of Eid-el-Kebir,
where believers traditionally slaughter a sheep themselves.
 The Farm Animal Welfare Council has concluded that slaughter without
pre-stunning does cause suffering to the animals.

 Much of the meat on an animal killed by religious slaughter may not
qualify as Kosher or Halal meat. There is no requirement that it should
be labelled as meat from an animal killed without pre-stunning.
 The European Parliament voted in June 2010 to require compulsory
labelling for all meat from animals killed without pre-stunning.
The Council of Ministers would have to approve that legislation.
The Coalition Government does not support it.

 The Coalition Government has no intention of making Halal
or Shechita slaughter illegal, but it considering welfare labelling of meat.

TENDANCES HALAL   read more format pdf 12pages http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsc-01314.pdf