News From : DagangHalal.com (11 Apr 2011)
AMSTERDAM – The Dutch parliament is planning to ban slaughtering ritual, a move that is drawing criticism from Jewish and Muslim groups in the country.
A proposal has been submitted by a pro-animal party, the Party of Animals, to ban the slaughtering on grounds that it causes unnecessary pain to the animal.
According to the Islamic ritual, the animal is slaughtered by a sharp blade. But the pro-animal party argues that the slaughter causes the animal unnecessary pains.
“Religious freedom isn’t unlimited,” Marianne Thieme, a founding member of the party said in an interview.
Rather, the party calls for the animal to be stunned before being killed. The proposed ban won support from the Socialist party, making it likely to be approved by the parliament next week. The extreme-right Party for Freedom (PVV) led by Geert Wilders is also likely to support the ban.
If the legislation passes, it would make the Netherlands the first European Union country to ban slaughtering and it might have a domino effect in other part of Europe. New Zealand, the Scandinavian and Baltic countries as well as Switzerland currently ban ritual slaughter.
Jewish groups ridiculed the move to ban their ritual slaughter. “What’s worse is that there is no conclusive scientific evidence that slaughter without stunning is more harmful or painful for animals,” Vis said.
In a letter to the Dutch prime minister ahead of the vote, European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Moshe Kantor warned that the bill would violate Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to freedom of religious practice.
Dutch Muslims were also critical of the proposed ban.
“If the law goes through now there’s nothing else to do but protest,” Abdulfatteh Ali-Salah, director of Halal Correct, a certification body for Dutch halal meat, said, reported The Detroit News.
“And that’s what we’ll do.”
Muslims make up one million of the Netherlands’s 16 million population, mostly from Turkish and Moroccan origin. Dutch Jews number around 50,000.
– AGENSI