The European Jewish umbrella group has lobbied UK government ministers, including the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Right Hon. Owen Paterson MP, for action after last week’s controversial statements by the president elect of the British Veterinary Association John Blackwell, putting the well-established practice of shechita, the Jewish ritual slaughter, in the UK into question.
Responding to last month’s contentious implementation of a unilateral ban on animal slaughter without pre-stunning in Denmark, Blackwell told UK daily The Times that animal welfare must be kept “out of the religious sphere”, as he defended the Danish government’s moves as having been “purely for animal reasons, which is right”.
Blackwell’s calls, the first ever recorded by the holder of the presidency of the BVA, have sparked fears across the UK’s established Jewish community, for whom British law has long protected the practice of religious slaughter, as long as it is practiced by licensed slaughterers in a registered slaughterhouse, which is entirely compatible with EU regulations on the protection of animals at the time of slaughter.
Speaking on behalf of the Jewish communities represented by the EJA, Rabbi Menachem Margolin pledged to fight against this latest attempt to outlaw the Jewish religious practice, with a campaign similar to that mounted in Denmark and Poland, as well as the fight against the proposed ban on religious circumcision in Norway.
He warned against a uniteral ban, which he said, ‘’will devastate Jewish communities across Europe’’.
European Commissioner for Health,Tonio Borg, last month told Rabbi Margolin in a meeting that he intended to seek clarification on the Danish ban from the Danish government, after he was told that scientific evidence has shown that kosher slaughtering “does not inflict more pain to animals than other methods commonly used in Europe”.
"Kosher butchering is essential for the continuation of Jewish life and its ban hurts Jews not only in Denmark, but in other places across Europe that import kosher meat from there," added Rabbi Margolin.
In a letter following on from the meeting of the two men, Commissioner Borg informed Rabbi Margolin that EU Regulations set a precedent for exemption on the pre-stunning rule, allowing that animals subject to particular methods of slaughter prescribed by religious rites may be killed without stunning provided that the slaughter takes place in a slaughterhouse.
He further added that attempts to outlaw shechita may infringe on Article 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, which concerns freedom of religion, and he would be seeking explanations on the Danish authorities’ justification for their move.