Meat sold in Britain should be labeled if the animal has not been stunned before slaughter, a British lawmaker said.
Neil Parish, who heads the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Beef and Lamb, made the call on Nov. 3 for the increased stunning of animals undergoing ritual slaughter during a parliamentary meeting of the group, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported.
Parish, of the Conservative Party, said the government should continue to research shechita, or Jewish ritual slaughter, and halal, Muslim ritual slaughter. Muslim and Jewish ritual slaughter requires that animals be conscious before their necks are cut.
Jewish lawmakers and those representing large Jewish constituencies defended shechita during the meeting.
Louise Ellman of the Labor Party called a ban on kosher meat production a “gross infringement” of the Jewish community’s civil rights, according to the Jewish Chronicle.
In recent years, kosher and halal slaughter has come under attack in many European countries by animal welfare activists and secularists, but also by right-wing nationalists who view the custom as foreign.
Since 2010, slaughter that does not involve stunning has been banned in Poland and Denmark. The lower house of the parliament of the Netherlands also banned the practice, but the ban was reversed in 2012 by the senate.
Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed recently that there would be no ban on religious slaughter in the United Kingdom. — jta