Australia’s peak animal rights groups have demanded an end to halal and kosher slaughter practices where livestock have their throats slit while they are conscious.
The RSPCA and PETA want animals to be stunned first before they are killed, after the Flanders region in northern Belgium outlawed traditional Muslim and Jewish abattoir customs.
Complicating the issue is how Australia in March 2017 backed new Indonesia laws which will require, from October 2019, all meat exported to the Muslim-majority nation to be slaughtered the halal way.
Despite Indonesia sourcing 80 per cent of its beef from Australia, the RSPCA says religious exemptions allowing animals to be conscious when they are killed needed to end.
‘A small number of abattoirs in Australia have an exemption to slaughter animals without prior stunning, authorised by state food authorities,’ it said.
‘This means that animals are fully conscious and experience pain and distress at the time of slaughter.
‘The RSPCA believes all animals should be stunned prior to slaughter.’
PETA, also known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said most animals were fully conscious when their throats were cut under halal and kosher slaughter conditions.
‘They are absolutely and understandably terrified when chains are shackled to their legs and they are hoisted into the air upside down,’ it told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.
‘For cattle and sheep who are killed without pre-stunning, unconsciousness can take several agonisingly painful seconds to come after their throats are cut.’
In March 2017, then trade minister Steven Ciobo visited Indonesia for three days.
Mr Ciobo used the occasion to announce Australia would back upcoming Indonesia laws, coming into force in October 2019, which will require beef cattle and sheep to have their throats cut to be widely marketed in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation.
To qualify as halal, or permissible in Islam, live animals must have their throats cut as part of the slaughter and die from blood loss.
In most cases, animals are stunned before they are slaughtered however, state government laws in Australia grant religious exemptions, which mean the livestock can still be conscious when it is killed.
The Flanders region in northern Belgium has effectively banned traditional halal and kosher slaughter practices since January 1, when the law first proposed in 2017 came into force.
The French-speaking Wallonia region in southern Belgium will officially ban those practices in September.
When legislation was first proposed in May 2017, it was slammed as ‘the greatest assault on Jewish religious rights since Nazi occupation’ by the European Jewish Congress.
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I really do think we owe it to the animals, we owe it to nature and the ecosystem. Any group crying “Nazi” are really despicable and have no love for animals! Religion should be tamed and not get in the way of progress. It really is Satanic how these animals are slaughtered!