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| A butcher cuts sheep meat at a market on the outskirts of Sarajevo on October 26, 2012, during the Eid al-Adha celebrations. Banning the ritual slaughter of livestock for food, a bedrock of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, has split Poland into opposing camps of religious groups, animal rights campaigners and flourishing meat exporters. |
AFP -
Banning the ritual slaughter of livestock for food, a bedrock of the Jewish and
Muslim faiths, has split Poland into opposing camps of religious groups, animal
rights campaigners and flourishing meat exporters.
Animal
rights activists backed by left-wing politicians last month won a key victory
when Poland's Constitutional Court voided regulations that since 2004 have
enabled the production of Jewish kosher and Muslim halal meat.
The court
upheld complaints that slaughter without prior stunning breached a 1997 law on
the humane treatment of animals.
But both
Jewish and Muslim clerics see the pending ban as going against the tenets of
their faiths. They also argue that their traditional method of butchering an
animal with a single, rapid cut to the throat minimises pain and suffering.
And
Poland's agriculture sector, thriving on meat exports, warns it would deal a
major blow to the economy.
The impact
of the ruling, however, remains moot as it enters into force on January 1, the
same day as a European Union directive setting common rules for the production
of kosher and halal meat across the 27-nation bloc, which Poland joined in
2004.
But
individual EU member states are allowed some level of discretion and, fresh
from their landmark courtroom win, animal rights campaigners insist the fight
is not over.
"Ritual
slaughter is inhumane, as the animals suffer," said Robert Biedron, a
member of parliament from the left-wing opposition Palikot Movement.
"We
live in the 21st Century, and we should ban this kind of method, even if it's
authorised by religious tradition," he told AFP.
Various
official and community-group estimates put Poland's Jewish and Muslim
population at between 20,000 and 30,000 each, in an overwhelmingly Roman
Catholic nation of 38 million.
For Jewish
community leader Piotr Kadlcik, kosher slaughter is essential.
"It's
a serious matter, even if only around a few hundred families actually follow
kosher rules," he told AFP.
"Polish
law guarantees us the right to ritual slaughter," he insisted, before
condemning anti-Semitic slurs circulating on the Internet since the issue has
been in the spotlight.
The kosher
issue exerts a powerful pull here because Poland was Europe's Jewish heartland
for centuries, until Nazi Germany killed the vast majority of the community
during World War II.
International
Jewish organisations have also taken Polish authorities to task.
"Kosher
butchering is essential for sustenance of Jewish life and its ban hurts Jews
not only in Poland but in other places across Europe," Rabbi Menachem
Margolin, head of the Brussels-based European Jewish Association, wrote in a
letter to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.
Margolin
also warned that a ban would be "devastating to Jewish welfare and freedom
of religion".
-- Farmers
back Jewish, Muslim groups ----
The issue
lacks the same politically-tinged feel as in Western European countries with
large Muslim communities, where some opponents of ritual slaughter are accused
of exploiting animal welfare campaigns for racist reasons.
Still,
Poland's Muslims are concerned.
 |
The Halal
meat section of a supermarket in the northern French city of
Hazebrouck is
pictured on March 15, 2012. Banning the ritual slaughter
of livestock for food,
a bedrock of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, has split
Poland into opposing camps
of religious groups, animal rights campaigners
and flourishing meat exporters.
|
"The
ban hasn't yet come into force, and we hope it won't come into force. If they
do, it will be a serious blow to religious freedom," said Bronislaw
Talkowski, head of the country's six-century-old Tatar Muslim community.
In
Talkowski's view the animal rights campaigners' arguments were part of a
"game".
Jewish and
Muslim groups have the firm backing of those in the farm sector for whom the
production of kosher and halal meat for export is a major source of income.
Poland is
home to around two dozen abattoirs specialised in kosher and halal butchery,
with the value of last year's exports estimated at 250-350 million euros
($327-456 million).
According
to agriculture ministry estimates, the country exports around 100,000
ritually-slaughtered livestock annually to some 20 nations including Turkey,
Israel, Germany and France.
Wieslaw
Roznanski, head of the national meat-industry federation UPEMI, called on
Poland to continue to allow ritual butchery -- and save jobs.
"If
not, we're going to lose the markets that we've won. And it'll be much harder
to return to them later," he told AFP.
"If we
lose those markets, a string of abattoirs will go bust and thousands of people
will be out of work," he added.
The
agriculture ministry estimates that around 6,000 jobs would be directly
affected.
Overall,
Poland exports more than two-thirds of its beef, and losing key ritual
slaughter markets would be a disaster for the entire sector, producers warn.
Aware of
the interlocking faith and economic fears, the country's centrist government
has promised an in-depth review of the issue before the first of the year.
"A
legal draft allowing ritual slaughter is already ready to be submitted to
parliament," Agriculture Minister Stanislaw Kalemba said Friday.
"Ritual
slaughter is authorised in around 20 European countries, and Poland should
allow it too," he said.
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