EU top court rules countries can ban halal slaughter
The European Union's top court has upheld curbs on ritual animal slaughter in Belgium, in a move that targets Muslim and Jewish religious rites.
The ruling, made by Luxembourg-based court on Thursday, approved a Belgian court ban on the slaughter of livestock that have not been stunned, citing animals rights.
The court in Belgium originally ruled in 2017 that animals need to be stunned before being killed.
This is while both Muslim halal tradition and the Jewish kosher ritual require livestock to be conscious when their throats are slit.
Jewish and Muslim associations argue that their methods of cutting animals’ throats with a sharp knife resulted in almost immediate death and that, traditionally, prior stunning was not permitted.
They say that the original decree had effectively outlawed their traditional ways of slaughtering animals.
Belgium is home to some 500,000 Muslims and 30,000 Jews.
Those who want to observe religious slaughter rules have to obtain meat from abroad.
In a similar move in 2018, the EU court upheld a Belgian law that required animal slaughter to take place in slaughterhouses.
Along with Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia are also not allowing for any religious exemptions to EU slaughter regulations.
The rise of far-right ideology and the propagation of anti-immigration policies have exacerbated the status of religious minorities in Europe.
Islamophobic and other extremist groups in Europe have been propagating against Islam.
French President Emmanuel Macron has lately sparked outrage among the Muslim population of nearly two billion people, after he publicly attacked Islam in defense of the publication of derogatory cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by making Islamophobic rhetoric.
He defended the “right to blaspheme” after French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo republished the sacrilegious cartoons in October.
Macron also made controversial remarks about “Islamist separatism,” which according to him threatens to take control in some Muslim communities around France.
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