News/Press releases
Shechita UK calls for withdrawal of misguided Early Day Motion - February 2009
David Taylor MP
Houses of Parliament
London
SW1A 0AA
6th February 2009
Dear Mr. Taylor,
Your recent Early Day Motion calls for the repeal of the exemption from stunning for religious slaughter methods and the compulsory stunning of animals post-cut until the exemption is removed. The Jewish community in the UK view this with great concern.
The Farm Animal Welfare Council Report of 2003 proposed a number of recommendations to the Government in an attempt to bring an end to shechita, the Jewish religious humane method of slaughter for food animals.
FAWC based their recommendations on unsound science which could not support their contentions and consequently the Government rejected their recommendations.
Shechita is the only method by which Jews are permitted to eat kosher meat and poultry and their products and fulfils all the requirements of humaneness. Furthermore, shechita achieves what other methods merely attempt, namely the instantaneous and irreversible loss of consciousness of the animal.
There is abundant scientific evidence to demonstrate that shechita is humane.
Further, your call for a post-cut stun is not “compliant with the theological tenets” as you erroneously claim. Since shechita incorporates an effective and irreversible stun, any further stun post-cut is not only unnecessary but also an interference with religious practice.
Our community has strongly refuted the "findings" of FAWC regarding the time it takes for an animal to become insensible and the Government has accepted that their "research" is disputed. FAWC's own admission that pain cannot be measured objectively demonstrates that their science is inconclusive. (FAWC Report 2003, Para 194)
Shechita is instantaneous; due to the immediate drop in blood pressure and anoxia of the brain, the animal loses consciousness within two seconds. It conforms to the statutory definition of “stunning” in that it is a process which causes the immediate loss of consciousness which lasts until death.
Your "abhorrence" of racism and religious intolerance does not prove justified in view of your call to Government to work with the Jewish community to amend the WASK 1995 Regulations with regards to religious slaughter. This is an attempt to interfere with the fundamental freedom of a religious community to define its own religious laws.
Further, there is strong evidence to suggest that the banning of religious slaughter in Norway and Sweden was initiated by known Nazi sympathisers in the 1930s after the National Socialist government of Germany introduced the ban on Jews to practice shechita.
By calling for a similar ban in the UK, you and the other signatories to the EDM have unwittingly aligned yourselves with such anti Jewish sentiments.
We call on you to withdraw your Early Day Motion.
Yours sincerely,
Henry Grunwald QC
Chairman, Shechita UK
cc: All signatories of EDM 510 -
Norman Baker MP
Colin Breed MP
Martin Caton MP
Colin Challen MP
Ann Cryer MP
David Drew MP
Bill Etherington MP
Hywel Francis MP
Sandra Gidley MP
Mike Hancock MP
Evan Harris MP
Paul Holmes MP
John Leech MP
Laura Moffat MP
Julie Morgan MP
Edward O’Hara MP
Bob Russell MP
Adrian Sanders MP
Alan Simpson MP
Desmond Turner MP
Rudi Vis MP
Steve Webb MP