Talk:Legal aspects of ritual slaughter/Archive 3

Spain, NL and Finland
I am pretty sure that those 3 countries, with a subsection, are EU members. So I for one find it odd that these and six others are mentioned in the "other european" section.94.145.236.194 (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Sweden and Norway
Among many highly biased claims in this article (badly in need of revision) are these:

All animals must be stunned before slaughter. There is no exception for religious slaughter. Sweden's ban was introduced in 1937 due to pressure from the German Nazi government.

"In 1933 shehitah was banned in Germany, just after Adolf Hitler had come to power. Shehitah was banned in Sweden in 1937. In all the areas the Nazis controlled shehitah was banned. Therefore it cannot be disregarded that Swedish legislation was powerfully influenced by Hitler's Germany and the Nazi regime."

Nonesense! This is a CLAIM and not a statement. It DOES NOT hold water in any historical context. It is merely a petition from an opposition party delegate to the Riksdag, where he expresses his personal opinion. Sweden's ban was MOST LIKELY influenced by the preceding Norwegian and Finnish bans, since all Nordic countries at the time had adopted legislation for animal rights, and against animal cruelty, and NOT the Nazis in Germany. Sweden was never occupied during WWII, and in 1937, Germany's influence on other countries politics was minimal. The nazi-regime had still not rearmed, consolidated its power domestically, and did not even openly support a fellow fascist like Franco. Sweden at the time was a democracy, and it was a democratic procedure that led to the ban. Please, stop twisting history about for the sake of your own narrow-mindedness.

In Norway and Sweden, legislation was introduced into the legislative bodies (riksdag) by Nazi sympathisers.

In Norway, there is no Riksdag. The uniformed author of this article, are among those who give Wikipedia a bad name for being inaccurate and biased. The Norwegian movement to ban home-butchering of animals (which is was the guiding principle for this piece of legislation) due to sanitary reasons, started in the early 20ies, and had NOTHING AT ALL to do with nazi-sympathizers. There were not even a nazi movement in Germany when this was first put on the political agenda in Norway.

>>You are obviously not familiar with the essential, basic literature on this subject (the history of shehitah bans and the public debates in newspapers, books published as part of the debate etc. There are even very recent works treating the question of slaughtering meat for food and circumsicion of boys as cultural practices many thousands of years old that do not fit into the modern idea of a state regulating these things as part of common sense and hygiene that should be regulated by the state, more later RPSM (talk) 11:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I am very familiar with all this. However, you are not only off topic, but dangerously ignorant of the realities here. Circumcision is not a part of this topic, so I do not know why you bring it up. Circumcision is fully legal in Norway and Sweden as long as it is performed by medical personnel under clinical conditions. Kosher and halal slaughtering of animals is also permitted if the method of slaughtering meets the hygienic standards for processing of all met and fish. The Norwegian legislation does not prohibit ritual slaughtering, it merely sets a standard.--Sparviere (talk) 15:13, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The veterinary experts of the time were opposed to a ban. A committee was commissioned on February 11, 1927 that consulted numerous experts and visited a slaughterhouse in Copenhagen. Its majority favored a ban and found support in the Department of Agriculture and the parliamentary agriculture committee.

Talk about contradicting yourself! The commission, which only RUDIMENTARY knowledge of Norwegian political history will reveal, was multi-partisan, but dominated by the liberals and socialists. The same parties who were the MAIN OPPONENTS to the right-wing craze in Europe at the time.

The authorship of this article is downright biased and disgraceful. The Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish governments introduced these new guidelines in compliance with new goals and demands for hygiene in food production. It was NOT a movement against ritually based slaughter, but an attempt to prohibit the unsanitary practices of home-slaughter, the (at the time still legal) trafficking in game, and to standardize the handling of food, like fish and meat, based on preventive health reasons. --Sparviere (talk) 17:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The relevant information on the contacts between people who called themselves anti-Semites and the Animal Protection Societies is in the following article: Michael F. Metcalf, "Regulating Slaughter: Animal Protection and Antisemitism in Scandinavia, 1880-1941," Patterns of Prejudice 23 (1989)RPSM (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

One book on the legal aspects of anti shehitah legislation (The Right to Practise Shehitah) is reviewed by a bookseller: "Part of the heritage left by Nazism is the discriminatory legislation now found on on the statue books of several countries prohibiting the practice of Shehitah." The book reviews the campaigns against shehitah in practically every European Country and has facimilies of the original legislation in the original languages. In Poland, shehitah was banned only months after the Nazi invasion, and in the legislation there, the punishment for Jews slaughtering meat was to be sent to death camps called _"concentration camps" RPSM (talk) 17:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The legislation in Sweden was proposed by two memmbers of the Bondeförbundet, one of them the Minister of Justice. This party was clearly racist and openly antisemitic. At the same time as the legislation was pushed through - there was no debate, it was not opposed, discussed or debated, funds were being granted to the worlds first Institute of Racial Hygiene in Uppsala. RPSM (talk) 09:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

If you can read Swedish, here is some background to the Bondeförbundet - the Swedish Agrarian or Farmer's party: - RPSM (talk) 11:07, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Much of what you say is correct: eg. Legislation was proposed and defeated in many legislative bodies in various countries. Instead, many democratic countries introduced legislation protecting Jewish and Muslim slaughter.
 * Norway banned Jewish ritual slaughter before the rise of the Nazis
 * The original Animal Protection Societies had ordinary peasant farmers and their traditional practices as a focus at the start of the movement it is true, and there was no mention of Jews in early bills proposed until, at a later stage National Socialists and others who sympathised with anti-Semites took up the cause of animal rights where it was debated in the legislative bodies of various countries.
 * Shehitah was never banned in Denmark. (The Jews there fled to Sweden in fishing boats by night). A shehitah ban was proposed by two Nazis in the legislative body and defeated (Metcalf)
 * The wording of legislation to ban shehitah by stipulating that stunning must be done prior to blod letting is a way of banning shehita (Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter) without mentioning Jews or Muslims. This is carefully explained in Religious Freedom: The Right to Practice Shehitah
 * Up until the rise of the Nazis, Shehitah was only banned in Switzerland, Norway and Saxony. A parliamentary committee (riksdagsutskott) reported this to the Swedish Riksdag at the same time as recommending a ban (Metcalf).
 * The arguments used in the various legislative assemblies to introduce shehitah bans were identical (e.g. that Jews didn't keep their own laws and traditions in any case) showing that the movement was international and that there was indeed contact between those proposing legislation in various countries. RPSM (talk) 13:52, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think we are more in consensus here now. However, there are a few points that need clarification:

1) Norway DOES NOT have a ban on ritual slaughtering. The fact that the current regulations makes it almost impossible, is a far cry from claiming there is a BAN (compare to this: In Norway, electrical current is 220-240V, and all electric devices sold have to be able to handle 220V. However, this does not mean an electrical device running on 110V is BANNED, it is just nigh impossible to use)

2) The Norwegian regulation for slaughtering, processing and handling of meat and fish was enacted PRIOR to the presence of National Socialists (who were never very many) in the parliament.

3) You write: "Shehitah was never banned in Denmark. (The Jews there fled to Sweden in fishing boats by night)". The latter part of that statement is absolutely irrelevant in this discussion (quite like the one regarding circumcision). What are you trying to say? "Shehita was never banned in Denmark therefore they fled to Sweden (in fishing boats)"?

4) You write: "stipulating that stunning must be done prior to blood letting is a way of banning shehita". In the case of the Norwegian regulation, this is a post-fact conclusion, and quite absurd, since you are deliberately reading malice into the intent. Apart from Religious Freedom: The Right to Practice Shehitah, which sadly is little but a propaganda writ, the Norwegian regulations were based on "modern" principles of hygiene and sanitation, and not bias against a religious group that was virtually non-existent in the agricultural life of the country. I personally would like to see exemptions being made for religious groups in situations like this, but I am also aware of the fact that any exemption to a rule will often lead to abuse.

5) As the means of communication improved in Norway during the first decades of the 20th Century, the still small, but growing, cities got access to produce from the countryside. To ensure certain quality standards for dairy, meat and fish product, the parliament (in Norway called Storting) enacted a series of so-called food-health laws. Here, unsupervised slaughtering of animals was banned, but this was actually a minor clause, as the laws primarily dealt with handling and processing of meat and fish.

These regulations were unpopular with the farmers, since they now had to bring the animals to a slaughterhouse that met certain hygienic and sanitary standards. This was an extra financial burden for many farmers, which again led to an increase in dairy farms at the expense of meat producing farms. Milk could more easily be stored on tanks and barrels until they were picked up and brought to a processing plant, whereas meat required freezing facilities. Home slaughtering of animals for own use has always been allowed, and is still common many places in Norway.

6) The practice of stunning the animals, which later became required, is a product of the animal right/animal welfare ideas that became popular in the 1920s. Since the Jewish and Muslim population in Norway at the time was insignificant (probably less than 1500 in total, and whom many were non-observant), combined with the fact there have never been dietary requirements pertaining to the slaughtering of animals in Norway, this was never considered a problem.

So, the fact there is a ban today is rather a CONSEQUENCE than a REASON. There has never been a ban on Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter per se. The Jewish population in Norway has always been small, and rather insignificant in the actual dealings concerning this particular topic. Very few, if any, Jews were involved in rearing livestock at the time of these regulations. --Sparviere (talk) 22:04, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

What I react to in Religious Freedom (Munk et al) is that the argument is used: "This man was convicted as a war criminal, therefore he is a Nazi, therefore we do not need to consider what he said seriously." However, the anti-Semites did índeed have an international campaign, and the same (racist) arguments were brought up in various legislative bodies. // The quote from Frankfurter Allemiene Zeitung (quoted in Religious Freedom and in later authors) is carefully worded to say that it is not necessarily the case that Animal Protectionists were anti-Semites. They were probably unwittingly inveigled into the arguments. Religious Freedom: The Right to Practise Shehitah is written like the case for the defence in a trial. But the essence of the main points holds. (That you are arguing against) - that without mentioning shehitah by name, the conditions (stunning in relation to blood letting) result in an effective ban. RPSM (talk) 13:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, and here you and I are absolutely in sync. Ritual slaughtering is de facto impossible in Norway. My point is that there is NO BAN against ritual slaughtering in Norway, and you can find halal and kosher meat in (selected) stores. It is NOT illegal to sell. It is not illegal to purchase. If it is your own animal, you can slaughter it according to whichever practice you adhere to. However, it is NOT possible to perform commercially based slaughtering that is not in line with the hygienic, sanitary and animal welfare guidelines.

You write that (qv.) "the essence of the main point holds". No, it does not. The stunning part, which caused a lot of controversy in Norway in the 1920s (since most farmers did not possess neither the equipment nor the facilities to comply) was rather an attempt to rationalize and industrialize the slaughtering process. Specialized machinery was developed to expedite the process, and stunning was an integrated part in this. I don't even think animal welfare was that involved in the process. It is rather an attempt to create a nationwide standard, since the slaughterhouses were publicly funded (and owned).

To me, a lot of this falls into the category of rather odd Norwegian regulations (which I remember from my time there); In Norway, you are not allowed to spike a soft drink by adding alcohol. However, there is no law against DILUTING alcohol by adding a soft drink. In other words, if you are mixing a Gin Tonic, it is against Norwegian law to start with the tonic, and then add gin to it. However, starting with the gin, then "diluting" it with tonic is perfectly legal.

My involvement in this matter is that it is incorrect to claim that Norway has a BAN against ritual slaughtering. No such BAN exists. However, an "effective ban" (which is not the same as a ban in legal terms) is in place since all commercially based meat production, processing and handling has to comply with a rather narrow set of regulations. --Sparviere (talk) 15:53, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

New Zealand
Apparently New Zealand has banned kosher killings. See http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=176872 Spectre at the Feast (talk) 10:32, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed bans
What is the point of talking about "Proposed bans", setting up a heading, and then saying "In this or that country there are no bans proposed. What does "proposed" mean? Does this have a legal meaning? In some languages a proposal means a white paper in Parliamant - that the subject has been or is being discussed in Parliament.

Is it the aim of the article to have a world-wide survey or Parliamentary legislation with all the proposals that have been discussed and rejected in the various legislative assemblies in Europe? This has already been done 1860 - 1946 in Religious Freedom: The Right to Practise Shehitah.

Is the aim of this article to transfer all the information in this book into the article?

I suggest a chronological narrative that is a summary of existing sources (Judd, Brantz, Munk (Religious Freedom) Metcalf and scrapping the tabular arrangement. RPSM (talk) 09:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

European history and Shechita: controversies and legislation
The first instance of anti-Shechita legislation occurred when obligatory stunning of animals was introduced in the Swiss canton of Aargau (Argovia) in 1850 with a dispensation for shechita that was rescinded ten years later. A ban was introduced in the Kingdom of Saxony. Later the Swiss ban in Aargau applied to the whole country after a referendum on the question; the Catholic cantons voted against and the Protestant cantons supported the ban.

Shechita was banned in Finland when it was part of the Russian Empire, but the ban was lifted after Alexander Dembo's research showed that Shechita was the best available method at the time. By 1936, shechita was only banned, within Europe, by Switzerland and Saxony although a number of unsuccessful attempts to ban Shechita had been made in various legislatures by the National Socialist Party. In proposed legislation in 1937, the Swedish Riksdag argued for a prohibition of the practice based on its offensive appearance to the non-Jewish population:


 * "Regardless whatever the case may be concerning the degree of suffering inflicted on the animal, there are other circumstances which support a schächten ban. Thus, we cannot disregard the fact that schächten makes a more disgusting and brutal impression on the observer than does slaughter by stunning. (...) Not only that, we have to take into consideration that, undoubtedly, for large sections of our population, it appears offensive to them that this kind of slaughter is legally permitted. [...]"

Nazi Germany and shechita
In Germany post 1880 the Tierschutz ("Animal Protection," 'animal welfare' in English) movement protested shechita together with vivisection; this and the related Völkisch ("Folkloric") movement met little support in the German Empire but were embraced by the Nazis. Nazi animal-welfare laws established after 1933 put substantial restrictions on shechita (see the 1940 movie The Eternal Jew for an example of this), and even today, animal welfare remains controversial in the Jewish community in Germany due to its association with the Nazi regime.

The Nazi conquests of Poland and other regions and countries saw the extension of their shechita ban; Benito Mussolini likewise forbade shechita in Italy. The Allied governments lifted these bans, together with other race laws, after the liberation of Europe in 1945.

Current laws
The Swedish government commissioned a report from the Veterinary College in the 1920s that concluded that shechita could continue, but this was ignored in later Swedish legislation (although in Swedish law it is legal to slaughter fowl for private consumption). Shechita slaughtering is also prohibited in Iceland, and since 1929 in Norway.

The United Kingdom forbids shechita munachat (slaughter of the animal while it is lying on its back), on animal welfare grounds.

New Zealand's Agriculture Minister struck down the exemption of shechita from animal cruelty laws on May 27, 2010, effectively banning the practice. New Zealand's Jewish leadership has indicated its willingness, should political avenues fail, to seek legal recourse to reinstate shechita's status as a form of legally-humane slaughter.

Shechita has been an emotional issue in the European Union; there were strikes of slaughterhouse workers in Germany and in Malmö, in southern Sweden, protesting that shechita was permitted at all. RPSM (talk) 16:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Animal welfare
Before the Second World War, religious slaughter was tolerated in Europe, except for four countries (Switzerland in 1893, Norway in 1930, Poland and Sweden in 1938). Religious slaughter without stunning was prohibited in several countries in Europe from 1936 to 1944 under the occupation of Nazi Germany (Germany in 1936, Italy in 1938, then in the majority of the other European countries according to the Nazi Germany occupation progress between 1940 and 1944).

The ritual method of slaughter as practiced in Islam and Judaism has been described as inhumane by animal welfare organisations in the U.K. and the U.S.A., who have stated that it "causes severe suffering to animals." These animal welfare organisations hope to forbid the right to practise the ritual slaughter without stunning in Non-islamic countries.

In 1978, a study incorporating EEG (electroencephalograph) with electrodes surgically implanted on the skull of 17 sheep and 15 calves, and conducted by Wilhelm Schulze et al. at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Germany concluded that "the slaughter in the form of a ritual cut is, if carried out properly, painless in sheep and calves according to EEG recordings and the missing defensive actions" (of the animals) and that "For sheep, there were in part severe reactions both in bloodletting cut and the pain stimuli" when captive bolt stunning (CBS) was used. This study is cited by the German Constitutional Court in its permitting of dhabiha slaughtering.

In 2003, the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), an independent advisory group, concluded that the way halal and kosher meat is produced causes severe suffering to animals and should be banned immediately. FAWC argued that cattle required up to two minutes to bleed to death when such means are employed. The Chairperson of FAWC at the time, Judy MacArthur Clark, added, "this is a major incision into the animal and to say that it doesn't suffer is quite ridiculous."

Halal and kosher butchers deny that their method of killing animals is cruel and expressed anger over the FAWC recommendation.

Majid Katme of the Muslim Council of Britain also disagreed, stating that "it's a sudden and quick haemorrhage. A quick loss of blood pressure and the brain is instantaneously starved of blood and there is no time to start feeling any pain."

In April 2008, the Food and Farming minister in the United Kingdom, Lord Rooker, stated that halal and kosher meat should be labeled when it is put on sale, so that members of the public can decide whether or not they want to buy food from animals that have been bled to death. He was quoted as saying, "I object to the method of slaughter ... my choice as a customer is that I would want to buy meat that has been looked after, and slaughtered in the most humane way possible." The RSPCA supported Lord Rooker's views."

The same years, the French Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fishing has published ASIDCOM’s Bibliographical Report on Religious Slaughter and the Welfare of Animals, as a contribution within the framework of a meeting on animals and society organized in the first half of the year 2008. This report quotes scientific papers and French veterinary PhD which support the equality or even possible superiority of religious slaughter to other methods of slaughter. This report quotes in particular the Ph.D work of Dr Pouillaude which concludes by: "religious slaughter would thus be a less stressing mode of slaughter. Conclusions of all the scientific experiments converge towards a firmly supported certainty: properly carried out, religious slaughter is the most humane way because it leads to less trauma to animals to be killed to be consumed for its meat".

For the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Humane Society International, "the animals that are slaughtered according to kosher and halal should be securely restrained, particularly the head and neck, before cutting the throat" as "movements (during slaughter) results in a poor cut, bad bleeding, slow loss of consciousness, if at all, and pain."

In Europe, the DIALREL project has occurred in order to address issues relating to religious slaughter by encouraging dialogue between the both Muslim and Jewish communities and a few scientists (mainly veterinaries) as well as gathering and dissemination of information. Started the 1st November 2006, this European project has been finished in summer 2010. Both the Muslim and Jewish communities were frustrated with the process of dialogue because of pre-conceived notions in the scientific community. RPSM (talk) 16:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC) RPSM (talk) 16:18, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Animal welfare controversies
The prohibition of stunning and the humane attitude towards the slaughtered animal expressed in shechita law limits the extent to which Jewish slaughterhouses can industrialize their procedures.

In the UK the Farm Animal Welfare Council alleged that the method by which kosher and halal meat is produced causes severe suffering to animals and has demanded that shechita without prior stunning should be banned - which would amount to a ban on shechita itself. The British government rejected FAWCs demands. Shechita UK pointed out that their members were well as animal rights activists.

According to FAWC it can take up to two minutes for cattle to bleed to death: according to Shechita UK it takes two seconds. Compassion in World Farming also supported the recommendation saying "We believe that the law must be changed to require all animals to be stunned before slaughter." But successive UK governments have rejected FAWC's demand, agreeing with the Jewish representative bodies that the allegation that shechita is cruel is at best based on inconclusive scientific evidence. The successful campaign by the UK's Jewish communities against the FAWC recommendation has been authoritatively analysed by Professor Geoffrey Alderman. Brian Klug commented: "The campaign against the so-called 'ritual slaughter' of animals has been hijacked by right-wing extremists, including members of the National Front, in a bid to incite racial intolerance of Muslims and Jews. The arguments and the terminology used by some animal rights supporters, including the well-known national organization, Compassion in World Farming, tend to encourage xenophobia and racism, engendering an 'us' and 'them' approach to the animal rights debate."

Reference has been made above to the argument that after shechita an animal remains conscious due to the vertebral arteries supplying blood to the brain, this is not true according to different studies.Chanoch Kesselman of Shechita UK writes that "It is well known that in vertebrate mammals, the brain is generously supplied with blood, mostly via the carotid arteries. The junction between the two carotid arteries and the vertebral arteries, forms a 'ring road' at the base of the brain. In cattle this junction is the rete mirabilis. In humans, this arrangement is the 'Circle of Willis'. The effect of having an arterial 'ring road' at the base of the brain is that if there is a blockage of one of the cerebral arteries, the brain region supplied by that vessel can still obtain adequate blood supply via one of the other vessels. However, this is not the case if the carotids are severed. In this case blood flow follows the route of least resistance so that blood which could reach the brain, now spills out from the cut ends of the carotid arteries. The brain is deprived of blood reaching it. Shechita does more than prevent blood from reaching the brain. It also ensures that any blood that is present in the brain empties out via the severed jugular veins at the moment of the incision resulting in immediate loss of pressure in the brain. Additionally the loss of cerebrospinal fluid pressure causes the brain to collapse completely and with it total loss of consciousness. This entire process occurs in less than two seconds. Professor HH Dukes of Cornell University, USA confirmed (in his study of blood pressure in the vertebral arteries of ruminant animals), that “consciousness will have been lost within two seconds of the incision”. This has also been confirmed by experiment by Rabbi Dr IM Levinger of Basel, Switzerland. Dr Stuart Rosen, consultant cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital, London confirms these findings in “Physiological Insights Into Shechita” (2004)."

The organization shechitauk maintains "There is ample published scientific evidence to show that Shechita, the Jewish religious humane method of slaughter for food-animals, is not a painful method. Furthermore, there is no conclusive evidence to show that it is painful. The Shechita process ensures the rapid uninterrupted severance of major vessels which produces an instant drop in blood pressure in the brain. This immediate loss of pressure results in the irreversible cessation of consciousness and sensibility to pain within two seconds. As Shechita incorporates an effective and irreversible stun, followed by immediate death, it is a humane method." 

The United States´ Humane Slaughter Act defines Shehitah as a humane slaughtering method. RPSM (talk) 16:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Moved from "Dhabhiha" article
0==Controversies==

Animal welfare


Critics of Ḏabīḥah halal, most notably some animal rights groups, contend that this method of slaughter 'causes severe suffering to animals'. The controvery began in 1850, as Jews in Europe were gaining enfranchisement, and there is a considerable literature on the subject. The question of racism and in 1845 - 1945 antisemitism, and today Islamophobia in Europe against muslims who immigrated in large numbers to Europe plays a major role. There is, for example, no such Animal Protection movement in Turkey, Pakistan, India, China, etc. It only exists across cultures and according to Krauthammer, has its origin in Christian antisemitic stereotypes.

In the United Kingdom, the government funded Farm Animal Welfare Council recommended in June 2003 that conventional Ḏabīḥah (along with Kosher slaughtering) without prior stunning be abolished. These recommendations were rejected by the British government. No ban on slaugher in Europe was introduced without a racist campaign preceding it. The campaigns used exactly the same arguments in Switzerland as they did in Norway, Sweden and Nazi Germany. Bans in occupied Europe were removed by the democratic allied forces together with other race laws.

The FAWC chairwoman of the time, Dr Judy MacArthur Clark, said 'This is a major incision into the animal and to say that it doesn't suffer is quite ridiculous'. According to Dr Peter Jinman, president of the British Veterinary Association, vets are "looking at what is acceptable in the moral and ethical society we live.

The UK Farm Animal Welfare Council said that the method by which Kosher and Halal meat is produced causes severe suffering to animals and it should be banned immediately. According to FAWC it can take up to two minutes for cattle to bleed to death, according to Shechita UK, two seconds. Compassion in World Farming also supported the recommendation saying "We believe that the law must be changed to require all animals to be stunned before slaughter."

Various research papers (which?) on cattle slaughter collected by Compassion In World Farming mention that "after the throat is cut, large clots can form at the severed ends of the carotid arteries, leading to occlusion of the wound (or “ballooning” as it is known in the slaughtering trade). Nick Cohen wrote in the New Statesman, "Occlusions slow blood loss from the carotids and delay the decline in blood pressure that prevents the suffering brain from blacking out. In one group of calves, 62.5 per cent suffered from ballooning. Even if the slaughterer is a master of his craft and the cut to the neck is clean, blood is carried to the brain by vertebral arteries and it keeps cattle conscious of their pain."

For the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Humane Society International, "the animals that are slaughtered according to Kosher and Halal should be securely restrained, particularly the head and neck, before cutting the throat" as "movements (during slaughter) results in a poor cut, bad bleeding, slow loss of consciousness if at all and pain."

A study done by Professor Wilhelm Schulze et al. at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Germany, with electrodes surgically implanted on the skull of sheep and calves, concluded that "[t]he slaughter in the form of ritual cut is, if carried out properly, painless in sheep and calves according to the EEG recordings and the missing defensive actions." The results were more favourable towards the ritual slaughter method, for which the "EEG zero line – as a certain sign of the expiration of cerebral cortex activity and according to today’s state of knowledge also of consciousness – occurred generally within considerably less time than during the slaughter method after captive bolt stunning." This study is cited by the German Constitutional Court in its permitting of dhabiha slaughtering. The Muslim Council of Great Britain has argued that, during Ḏabīḥah slaughter, "The brain is instantaneously starved of blood and there is no time to start feeling any pain." Whether or not pain is inflicted in properly carried out slaughterings, the question remains to be answered if pain is inflicted when the slaughter is carried out improperly, how many animals are slaughtered improperly, and whether the meat of these improperly-slaughtered animals ought to be considered halal (or kosher as the case may be) in the first place.

Deleted section that remains in Dhabhiha article RPSM (talk) 20:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

reference
RPSM (talk) 10:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Public Debates in the 1880s
In the 1880s anti-Semites joined forces with Animal Protection Societies, that were open to anyone to join, to campaign for anti-shechita legislation to be passed. The movement had its origin in Germany, and affected the German speaking cantons of Switzerland, but not the French or Italian speaking cantons. In fact, Catholic prelates advised their parishoners to vote against banning religious slaughter. This was because of Bismark's anti-Catholic Kulturkampf that aimed at the secularization of Germany and its unification. Another factor was the struggle for Jewish emanicipation in Switzerland and elsewhere. Some researchers see the question of banning Religious slaugher at this time as a way to introduce legal restrictions against Jews when a wave of liberal legislation had removed restrictions and disabilities over the whole of Europe. Antisemitism reinvented itself, turning to scientific and pseudo-scientific arguments such as racial hygiene and bans on religious slaughtering.

The researchers are Berman, Munk & Munk The Right to Practise Shehitah, Dorothee Brandz and Robin Judd, who wrote papers simultaneously on Religious Slaughter in Germany, Pascal Krauthammer, whose book has an English summary outlining the twists and turns in the legislation in Switzerland. RPSM (talk) 12:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * This section has nothing to do with the legal aspects of religious slaughter, and much of it is an argument that Jewish religious slaughter is humane. I propose to remove that whole section.Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 11:32, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Switzerland
The section on Switzerland relies heavily on an Anti-Shechita section of the Modiya project. This source is highly tendentious (its intent being to show anti-Semitic motivations of opponents of ritual slaughter), yet it is used by Wikipedia to make broad-brushed assertions. For example, the sentence "By banning the performance of a core Jewish ritual, the Swiss people found a disguised way to limit the immigration of Jews into Switzerland." There are quotes, but no in-text reference as to who is making this broad-brushed assertion. At the least, the sentence should be qualified in terms of "some people maintain" or "some contend."

Another example is found in the last paragraph of the section. Consider the phrase "and asked Jews to either become vegetarian or leave the country." The subject of the sentence is a very broad "they," which supposedly refers to "political groups," "animal right activists," and "unaffiliated citizens." And how many of these "they" actually posed the options in the stark terms of "become vegetarians or leave the country"? Indeed, a more balanced article (http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Ritual_slaughter_gives_Swiss_food_for_thought.html?cid=2524742) quotes Alfred Donath, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish communities, as saying that, if imported kosher meat were also to be banned, "We would have three options: either we no longer respect our beliefs; or we all become vegetarians; or we leave Switzerland." This is a much different quote; it is the perception of defenders of shechita that they have these options, and these options assume a ban on imported kosher meat. The article also introduces the view that an animal could be stunned before ritual slaughter. The article notes: "A recent legal opinion on the matter - conducted for the Federal Veterinary Office - complicated the debate by stating that neither the Talmud nor the Koran expressly forbade the stunning of animals before slaughter. That may be the case, but Donath says Jewish tradition dictates that the animal should be conscious." This is the sort of balanced article that Wikipedia should be relying on, not the highly assertive and tendentious source of one section of the Modiya project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Profspeak (talk • contribs) 02:09, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

References 37 and 38 in the article at this date give Johansen - Who is Johansen?
In the section on Norway a reference is given to Johansen. I do not know how to search the History to find the editor who did this. Wish to discover title of book. RPSM (talk) 07:18, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have looked through the history. The reference was added with this edit by on 17 Jun 2008. At that point there were three references to Johansen, the first of which gave full details and an ISBN. Since then the first reference has been edited out, taking the details with it, but I have re-added them to what was the second but is now the first reference, so that they are now visible again at ref. 37 in the reference list. JohnCD (talk) 09:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

OR and European Convention on Human Rights
I tagged a section as WP:OR. The claim that some states don't follow the European Convention on Human Rights is a pretty strong one and requires extraordinary evidence. While I'm sure that a case can be made for that position, I'm also sure that a case can be made for the opposite position. For instance, the fact that an individual can appeal all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if he or she thinks the conviction is against the convention and that parliaments must consider the convention when making or amending law suggests to me that the countries in question do follow the convention. However, that's not really for me to say. The section needs sourcing from an unbiased legal scholar that argues that some states don't follow the convention, and even then the claim needs to be stated as an opinion, not as a clear-cut statement of fact as it is now. Sjö (talk) 09:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The secondary source is Religionsfrihet i Sverige: om möjligheten att leva som troende (Swedish). It is the last paragraph of the article: Religiös slakt (Religious Slaughter). If you can get hold of it, I would be pleased to discuss it with you. RPSM (talk) 14:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The section describing ritual slaughter in Poland
This section should be removed completely. It is poorly written and does not satisfy language standards of Wikipedia articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.163.146.24 (talk) 23:46, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to Remove "dispute" template from heading of article
None of the discussion on the talk page correlates to the date of the dispute template. The dispute template is dated 2008, and the earliest talk section is dated 2012. I could not find guidelines on the template:dispute page regarding the conditions required for removing the template. Boruch Baum (talk) 00:25, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Boldly Removed Summoned by bot. First, no one has objected in two weeks so I don't think this will be particularly controversial; I decided to be bold, ignored the rules, and just removed the tag despite the RfC. If anyone thinks I'm wrong, feel free to revert me. Second, the article has changed considerably since the tag was added to the point where I don't think it is still valid (or needs a new rationale for keeping it). Third, it seems the sources are acceptable, while maybe a little primary at times, none stand out as unreliable. Fourth, I checked the talk page archives from around the time the tag was added and there is nothing there either. Looking at the page history, the tag was added by an ip that only has two edits, the last in April 2008, so again, don't think there's a good reason to keep it as the person disputing it is probably long gone and didn't really explain what the issue was. So I think it's a no contest case for removal, but, if others disagree over the course of the RfA, feel free to revert. Wugapodes (talk) 05:28, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Section on Belgium to be added
The Flemish and the Walloon regional parliaments adopted laws imposing the stunning of the animal even in case of ritual slaughter, see Verfassugnsblog 16.08.2017 and Brussels Times 30.03.2017Bancki (talk) 15:26, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Legality of European regulation
A Brussels local court has asked the opinion of the European Court of Justice on the legality of the European regulation. Ritual slaughter without stunning is only allowed in a full-fledged slaughterhouse, is this too burdensome? ECJ case nr. C-426/16, see also Flanders Today 29.07.2016Bancki (talk) 15:26, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

== May 23, 2011 Expert Opinion on Considerations When Evaluating All Types of Slaughter: Mechanical, Electrical, Gas and Religious Slaughter And A Critical Scientific Review of Report 161: Ritual Slaughter and Animal Welfare (September, 2008); Report 398: Re ==

https://asknoah.org/wp-content/uploads/HollandPreliminaryReport052311.pdf

I saved this link here, because I was not sure where to put it. RPSM (talk) 10:05, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

And this one too: Dorothee Brantz: Stunning Bodies: Animal Slaughter, Judaism, and the Meaning of Humanity in Imperial Germany RPSM (talk) 12:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC)