Stunning: The ‘conditional’ halal
By ‘مختار ماستر’ (Mukhtar Master)

Current UK law allows for religious slaughter of animals to take place without the need to stun. Schedule 12 of ‘The Welfare of Animals Regulations 1995’ makes clear that slaughter for Kosher, known as Shechita, and also Halal, is exempt from the need to stun the animal.

However, despite the legal exemption in the UK, a staggering 85% of all halal meat and chicken produced in the UK is stunned. Which then begs the question:

*How on earth, have we got into this whole mess, where the ‘sub-standard’, has become the norm?*

I put forward three main factors which have caused this problem:

The first factor has to be the fact that there is one, singularly unique, fatwa on the permissibility of stunning for slaughter. I am not qualified to comment on the Islamic ruling, however, I can comment on its political purpose and subsequent consequences. The very serious questions this fatwa raises is:

• Whose interest does this fatwa serve?
• Additionally, what is the need for a fatwa on the permissibility of stunning when we don’t need to stun?

The fatwa only serves the interests of the meat and chicken producers of the UK. The industry is currently valued at a staggering £2.6bn a year. The ability to stun the meat and chicken prior to slaughter, makes it all a more convenient streamlined business, and, more importantly, generates greater profits.

Secondly, there is currently no single unified definition of ‘halal’ in the UK. Only one of the national accreditation bodies currently stipulates ‘unstunned’ as a criteria for halal. With all the main chicken and meat producers preferring to stun- it is the other accreditation bodies who generate much of the business and as a direct consequence - seek not to try and agree a unified definition of halal.

Finally, and quite unfortunately, it is the Muslim community itself who, for want of a better phrase, ‘can’t be bothered’. Unfortunately, we are being taken for a ride, but no one really seems to care.

Lancashire County Council, took advantage of the sorry state of affairs that the Muslim community are in, by becoming the first council in the UK to introduce a ban on unstunned halal meat in schools, on the pretext of animal welfare. This, despite a huge consultation response against the proposal from the Muslim community, together with a threat to boycott the provision from schools and pupils. They even ignored the fact that Lancashire, under the auspices of the Lancashire Council of Mosques (LCM), had one unified definition of halal. In 2007, the ‘LCM Halal Sub-Group’ consulted widely to devise a unified agreed definition of halal. The fifth point in their agreed criteria for halal is:

• The slaughter process must avoid all forms of stunning and the animal must be alive prior to slaughter.

It is clear that we have not learnt our lesson from history. In the 1880’s, anti-semites joined forces with Animal Protection Societies to campaign for anti-shechita legislation to be passed in Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia. Germany banned shechita nationwide - three months after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Even today, many countries in the EU have introduced legislation to outlaw slaughter without stunning and one, Slovenia, has banned religious slaughter altogether.

Stunning is a process which only serves to make our meat and chicken merely ‘conditional’ halal. That is to say, *if* the animal survives the stunning, *then* the meat and chicken is ‘halal’. I say we should demand ‘unconditional’ halal - no ifs or buts.

Additionally, why would we seek to implement a method which only introduces cruelty to animals by the use of electric shocks and metal bolts being fired into their brains. Ours is a religion which rewards mercy to animals.

As Muslims we need to understand that the removal of non-stunning is just the precursor to try and push to remove religious slaughter altogether. We are blessed that we live in a country which allows us to practice our religion freely. We should be grateful of the favours of our Lord, and should strive to preserve these rights and not merely watch them dissipate before our very eyes.