MPs Rally to Protect Religious Slaughter

23rd February 2015 – Shechita UK has expressed its thanks to the MPs who spoke passionately in the defence of religious slaughter in a series of speeches at a Westminster Hall debate yesterdayafternoon in the House of Commons.

Of the thirteen speakers in the debate, Louise Ellman, Richard Harrington, Mike Freer, Mathew Offord, Diane Abbott and Bob Blackman spoke in support of Shechita, the Jewish religious method of animal slaughter for food and Shabana Mahmood MP spoke in support of Zabiha, the Muslim method. Only four MPs spoke in favour of the e-petition calling for an end to religious slaughter which prompted the debate.

The petition took more than nine months of frenetic campaigning to generate the 100,000 required signatures, calling for ban on non-mechanically stunned slaughter. A similar petition calling for the protection of religious slaughter has attracted more than 120,000 signatures in just 9 days.

Following the debate, Shimon Cohen, Campaign Director of Shechita UK said, “Once again, the position of the Jewish community as regards religious slaughter, has been extremely well represented and the debate was in fact dominated by those whose priority was the protection of Shechita.”