It is known that Great Britain is one of the advanced countries in the world, where the protection of human rights is really on top. The protection of animal rights is no less serious here, especially since many vegetarians and vegans live here.
However, even in the United Kingdom with the protection of animals so far, not everything is going smoothly. Recently, the head of the British Veterinary Association, John Blackwell, once again made a proposal at the government level to ban religious slaughter – the religious killing of “halal” and “kosher” meat, which caused a wave of public debate.
The proposal of the country’s chief veterinarian followed another, third in a row, insistent request to do the same from the Farm Animal Welfare Council. The first was in 1985 and the second in 2003.
The wording in all three cases was: “The Council considers the killing of animals without prior stunning inhumane, and requires the government to eliminate this exception to the legislation.” The reason for the exception is that the British constitution generally prohibits the inhumane killing of animals, but allows Muslim and Jewish communities to ritually kill animals for religious purposes.
It is obvious that one cannot simply take and ban the religious killing of animals – after all, both religion and politics are involved in this matter, the protection of the rights and well-being of hundreds of thousands of subjects of the British crown is at stake. Therefore, it is not clear what decision the English Parliament and its head, the current Prime Minister David Cameron, will make. It’s not like there’s no hope, but there isn’t much of it.
Indeed, earlier, the governments of Thatcher and Blair did not dare to go against the centuries-old tradition. In 2003, the Department of Environment, Nutrition and Agriculture also concluded that “the government has an obligation to respect the requirements of the customs of different religious groups and recognizes that the requirement of pre-stunning or immediate stunning at slaughter does not apply to slaughter procedures adopted in the Jewish and Muslim communities” .
On a variety of ethnic and political as well as religious grounds, the government has repeatedly denied repeated requests by scientists and animal rights activists to ban religious slaughter. Recall that the rules of slaughter in question do not imply stunning the animal – it is usually hung upside down, a vein is cut and the blood is released. Within a few minutes, the animal bleeds out, being fully conscious: wildly rolling its eyes, convulsively jerking its head and screaming heart-rendingly.
The meat obtained in this way is considered “clean” in a number of religious communities. contains less blood than with the conventional slaughter method. In theory, the ceremony should be watched by a special person who knows the nuances of all religious prescriptions on this occasion, but in reality they often do without him, because. it is difficult and expensive to supply such ministers to all the slaughterhouses.
Time will tell how the “halal-kosher” issue will be resolved in the UK. In the end, there is hope for animal rights activists – after all, the British even banned their favorite fox hunting (because it involves the brutal killing of these wild animals), which was a national tradition and a source of pride for the nobility.
Some vegetarians note the limited vision of the proposal made by the country’s chief veterinarian. After all, they remind, about 1 billion heads of cattle are slaughtered for meat every year in the UK, while the share of killings by religious communities is not so significant.
Religious slaughter without first stunning is only the tip of the iceberg of human cruelty to animals, because no matter how the killing goes, the result will be the same; there is no truly “good” and “humane” murder, this is an oxymoron, say some supporters of an ethical lifestyle.
Religious killing of animals according to the canons of “halal” and “kosher” is prohibited in a number of European countries, as it does not meet ethical standards: in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Poland. Who knows, maybe the UK is next on this green list?