On Tuesday, September 20, the association L214 publicly released new, shocking images recently taken in a slaughterhouse in the region of Nouvell-Aquitaine in France. The images show the slaughter of sheep for the religious festival,Eid al-Adha.ON 12 September, the day on which the images were captured, some thousands of sheep were slaughtered in this establishment, amongst the largest in France.(Warning: graphic images) [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70wwjEZ0VX8&feature=youtu.be[/embed]The series of events is difficult to digest. The sheep, stuck in a narrow bottleneck,have their throats slit while still fully conscious. A few seconds later, they are hung upside down from a paw while still struggling as their blood is drained from their bodies.As they are not yet braindead, the animals shake andwiggle, making the slaughterhouse workers' jobs extremely hazardous. The association L214, who is often involved in ordeals regarding animals in abattoirs, called it "an ocean of suffering".
Source : L214
L214 aims to highlight that slaughtering conscious animals doesn't hold the monopoly on cruelty. They have previously released investigations showing the cruelty of slaughterhouses in France, with animals that have been stunned as well as those that haven't.But for Brigitte Gothière, spokesperson, the fact that the animals are conscious while bleeding to death adds to the suffering. She explained to the local press(page in French):
It's a practice that is recognised by the science and veterinary community as provoking more pain and stress than slaughtering animals that are stunned.
In France, slaughter without stunning is legalin the event of ritual slaughter for religious events or worship, whether is be halal or kosher.
Source : L214
L214 claims that abattoirs tend to take "shortcuts" when it comes to ritual slaughter and this doesn't allow for a quality debate which puts the animals first:
To oppose "religious slaughter" and "stunning" out of principle and ignore the fact that many majority Muslim countries accept stunning (such as Indonesia and Jordan) is to reject a dialogue which could lead to slaughter laws that make stunning systematic. It's high time to move forward and to put the animals at the centre of the debate.
Laws in the UK and the US
According to an official document from the RSPCA, "In the UK, the Jewish and Muslim communities are exempt from a section of the law under „The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing Regulations 2015‟ that requires all animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered unless it is a sheep, goat, bovine animal or bird being killed in accordance with religious rites." John Blackwell, who took over as president elect of the British Veterinary Association (BVA) last year, said to The Times:
We have tried to keep it out of the religious sphere. It is not an attack on religious faith, it is a view that we have taken on animal welfare.
In the US, electronarcosis has been widely accepted as the most humane way to stun the animal. Organisations such as the Egyptian Fatwa Committee have agreed to this method of stunning for Halal meat. Electronarcosis does not infringe on these standards for Halal. A petition banning slaughter without stunning
For this reason, L214 launched a petition addressed to French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, calling for a ban on slaughter without stunning. "To ban the death of animals while they are still conscious is the least we can do", adds the association.Click hereor on the image below to sign the petition (page in French).
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