“BVA is negligent, obsessed and politically driven” says Shechita UK

Shechita UK has today branded the British Veterinary Association, who ran an e-petition against Religious slaughter, as ‘negligent, obsessed and politically driven,’ in advance of a Westminster Hall debate on the subject this afternoon.

Today’s Parliamentary debate comes as a result of an e-petition, that 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 in favour of religious slaughter has attracted 100,000 signatures in just 9 days.

Since January 2013 there has been a House of Lords Debate and a Westminster Hall Debate on the subject, with a third debate scheduled for today. Many other animal welfare concerns, such as game hunting and mechanical mis-stunning, have not been debated once in that time. Shechita amounts to less than 1% of all slaughter in the UK.

Shimon Cohen, director of Shechita UK, which campaigns on behalf of the Jewish community for the right to carry out religious slaughter for food commented,

“There have been two comprehensive and balanced debates on religious slaughter in little over a year, for animal welfare groups to push for a third is wild-eyed and obsessive.”

“The sheer volume of campaigning the BVA and others have put into this e-petition highlights the complete hypocrisy in animal welfare campaigning today. Two weeks ago a horrific film of extraordinary disregard for animal welfare at a non-mechanically stunned abattoir in Yorkshire came to light. Animal Welfare campaigners called for an end of religious slaughter. Four days later a similar video was released at a conventional slaughter house and I didn’t hear one call to end conventional slaughter.”

“The BVA are currently being negligent in their duty to protect animals. If there is a genuine interest in improving animal welfare standards at time of slaughter, we need to look at many areas like abattoir practices, CCTV and mis-stunning. This fixation with religious slaughter beggars belief.”