Lancashire council have become the first to ban un-stunned halal meat in school dinners in a move which has been warmly welcomed by the BNP.
Following an ’embittered’ debate last Thursday, the Conservative-controlled council voted in favour of the ban, before insisting to the Muslim community that the ban was only in the interests of the animals and not in objection to the backward nature of the halal ritual slaughter process.
Council leader Geoff Driver acted against the motion while leaders from the local Muslim community acted in favour of the torture of livestock.
In 2012, the council briefly banned the supplying of halal meat to schools, but children of Muslim families boycotted their meals demanding that the animals be painfully tortured to death otherwise is wasn’t good enough for them to eat.
While pre-stunning is not required for halal slaughter, the animal is required to die by having it’s throat slit and being slowly bled to death.
Many Muslims fear that the stunning process will kill that animal and make the meat ‘haram’, forbidden, and presumably bringing down upon them all kinds of unspecified misfortune.
The requirements for halal
- There is no consensus across the Muslim community over whether animals can be stunned before they are killed and remain Halal
- However, over 80 per cent of Halal meat sold in the UK is stunned, and meat from New Zealand and Denmark all has to be stunned before it is slaughtered.
- Halal is Arabic for permissible. If meat is not halal, it is described as ‘haram’, or forbidden.
- Animals must be alive and healthy at the time of slaughter and all blood is drained from the carcass. During the process, a Muslim will recite a dedication, known as tasmiya or shahada.
- Stunning cannot be used to kill an animal, according to the Halal Food Authority (HFA), a non-profit organisation that monitors adherence to halal principles. But it can be used if the animal survives and is then killed by halal methods, the HFA adds.
The council decision was objected to by the acting CEO of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, Abdul Qureshi, who demanded that Muslim children should boycott their school lunches for their right to have animals tortured.
Responding to advice from the RSPCA that livestock should be stunned before slaughter to enable a painless death, Mr Qureshi inferred that Quranic ‘science’ offered better insight than contemporary veterinarians, claiming that the RSPCA’s guidance “is most of the time based on feelings, it’s not scientifically conclusive.”
An RSPCA spokesman reacted to Mr Qureshi’s statement:
“I utterly, completely refuse to cede that’s where our views come from.
“Ourselves, the British Veterinary Association and the Humane Slaughter Association signed a joint statement saying the only humane way to kill an animal is to stun it.
“The farm animal welfare council is of the opinion that the only humane way to kill an animal to stun it.
“You take New Zealand – everything is pre-stunned there, and it’s all Halal, it’s exported to countries in the Middle East and they all accept that it is Halal.
“We, for animal welfare reasons, would be quite happy if unstunned meat was banned across the UK.”
But an exasperated Mr Qureshi wasn’t done, insisting that the torture was necessary for he and fellow Muslims to worship their god.
Speaking on the council held vote, Mr Qureshi whimpered:
“It was a resolved issue, it was raised again, the law allows the kosher and halal to be accepted. It’s lawful.
“The council agreed in 2013 – a report was produced, the schools were made free to choose, and that’s what everyone agreed.
“I think that looking at all those things, it was an amicably settled matter, so the vote is unecessary.
“I am not aware of any other council voting for these kinds of things.”
“This council is the only one going against the British law on this matter.”
Animal welfare is close to the heart of the BNP because we recognise that a civilisation can be judged on the way it treats animals.
The BNP commends Lancashire on its decision, but far more must be done to improve the conditions for the welfare of animals.
Imposing un-stunned meat from ritual slaughter methods on pupils – and just imagine the outcry from Muslims if their children were forced to eat pork – public service users and the general populace is completely unacceptable and must end.
As long as religious groups are granted an exemption from legislation aimed at ensuring animals do not suffer avoidable distress or pain, the number of animals killed under the exemption should be kept to an absolute minimum – and consumers must be able to avoid such products.
The BNP is unequivocal on its position: In British law, religion must carry no exception to cruelty to animals.
Regardless of the fact that a majority of Muslims accept pre-stunned slaughter, British law must not be changed to facilitate foreign practices, and even more so barbaric and inhumane ones.
Politicians which permit such barbarous practises are complicit in them.
The BNP urges all schools and local authorities to resist being bullied into unethical and regressive policy decisions by Islamist leaders claiming to speak on behalf of all Muslims.
The BNP will also ban the the practise of kosher slaughter in Britain.
While the kosher industry far smaller in Britain than the burgeoning halal meat market but an outright ban will be put in place in the interest of animal welfare.
