Is Halal cruel and should it be banned?

Question

I am concerned that the production of Halal meat is a blatant cruelty in the slaughter of animals for food but that this is allowed on spurious cultural/religious reasons.

If I kick my dog I would be taken to court, if I hang a cow up by the rear legs and cut its throat so that it bleeds to death I can sell it in a Halal butchers.

What say the government, what say the animal rights lobbies, what say you?

Answer 1

I say you need a hobby.

Answer 2

Halal Cruelty

Answer 3

I took this issue up with our local mp a while ago. Halal and kosher should be banned in the UK, period. Slaughtering animals for food should be done as humanely and quickly and cleanly as possible. Religion or any other reason should not come into it. Even current methods are not perfect in abbatoirs but at least there are laws that allow prosecution for undue cruelty and suffering BUT NOT for halal slaughter. You only need to say it's our religion or our culture and you can do more or less what you like.

After doing a little research on the meat that reaches our plates I discovered that some of the meat in the supermarkets have been slaughtered this way, specifically, lamb and mutton and chicken. I also heard that New Zealand sell halal meat to non muslims in the UK because it saves time and money carrying out two different procedures. Someone discussed it on a BBC radio programme a couple of years ago. My mp said he was satisfied that this wasnt the case in New Zealand because he had personally been there on an inspection tour of sorts (yeah right..) I hope other people take up the case of halal slaughter and have banned outright.

Answer 4

I say...I'm not sure.

I will only eat meat if I believe the animal was killed humanely, meaning no pain or suffering. But I'm not willing to take that chance with Halal or Kosher meat. I've never been completely reassured that the animal feels no pain through this method and therefore, do not advocate it.

Answer 5

Halal disrespects the ones the koran calls "People of the Book": Jews and Christians. According to Jewish Dietary Laws (Talmud Avodah Zarah 29b) and for Christians (Acts 15:28-29), consuming foods offered up to idols is forbidden. And no, allah is not God - it is the name of islam's 'god'. The words for 'god' and 'allah' are not even the same - look at islam's shahada. It doesn't say 'there is no allah but allah...' it says 'there is no god but allah....' and the arabic is elaha for God. The ancient arabic only had one word for it. allah is a name.

Everytime an animal is killed for halal foods, 'allahu akbar' is shrieked. It is the same shriek when a non-moslem is killed and/or beheaded by a moslem. But if we look at the koran, we see that allah calls us apes, pigs, dirt (kufar/kafir) - so the mystery is solved.

And what we find out is that halal processing funds violent jihad. But so does part of a moslem's zakat fund violent jihad. They can feign ignorance, or bash me - it is in their sharia and I have 3 schools of sharia law that are pretty similar about jihad - who does it, the different types and where it gets some of its funding.

Answer 6

Yes, halal is cruel as they slit the throat of the animal to kill it as it is a offering to their god. This offering is very ironic as if their god created life for them, why would their god want it's produce killed in such a barbaric way. Yes I agree that it should be banned as animals deserve to be killed humanely.

Answer 7

Halal way is actullay not painful:

Scientific evidence through monitering ecg and eeg signals during slaughtering via electrodes attached to the animal show that the halal method of killing an animal is the most humane. The throat of the animal is cut with a very sharp knife cutting the jugular and carotid veins along with the trachea and oesphagus but leaving the spinal cord intact, because by severing the spinal cord it would cause the animal alot of pain. Through this way of slaughter there was no change in the eeg graph for the first three seconds...just the same how we can cut ourselves and not notcice til some time later. the following three seconds were characterised by a condition of deep sleep-like unconciousness brought about by the draining of large volumes of blood. thereafter the eeg records a zero reading showing no pain being felt at all. the bodily movements here are simply the reflex of the spinal cord and not because of pain.

Using the western method of stunning the animal looks peaceful but is in fact not. the eeg readings indicate severe pain immediately after stunning. In the halal way the animal dies from the starvation of blood and oxygen due to blood loss. the western method stops the heart while the animal still feels pain and because the body doesnt convulse there is often blood retention within the animal which of course isnt as clean to eat.

But can I now say something else:

People need care. People in USA and all over world need help and people at this moment in time have their priority wrong. Care more for animals than people.

Answer 8

Unbelievable! No wonder there's so much conflict with Islam if people like you are going to spew drivel like that. What research or knowledge have you based this question on? I'm sick of people bashing the Muslims with uneducated nonsense. Halal is something they do that doesn't interfere with us. I don't believe in Islam but everyone has a right to practise their beliefs as long as it doesn't affect other people.
Have you ever killed an animal? I suspect not and you most probably live in a city. I hunt and fish and from having to do the task myself, I believe Halal is the most clinical method, the knife is extremely sharp, the throat is expertly cut and it's a quick, painless death. If you've ever been cut by something VERY sharp, you don't feel it.


What about the way we treat animals over here?(uk)

Battery hens
Feeding cr@p unnatural pellets to livestock

The French eat horses, moan about that instead.

Answer 9

See this video and decide for youself whether or not Halal procedures are cruel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_bZzxep87c

Answer 10

New research has show that halal/kosher slaughter causes pain ;- http://www.grandin.com/ritual/slaughter.without.stunning.causes.pain.html

There is no such thing as "stunned halal". If it is properly stunned then it is NOT halal. If an animal is stunned in mainstream slaughter then it is "stunned to death" and is unconscious and if left would not recover. In halal slaughter they now use a "recoverable stun" of low amperage that only paralyses the animal and does not necessarily make it insensitive to pain. It could be argued that it is worse than no stun at all.

Answer 11

Yes I know it is irritating much. I live in a moslem country, sometimes I see them like kind of frightened men, They just do not want to touch something if there is no Halal Labels on there, strange rule and live... but that is true. And many of us that like to eat pork as our food, they just called us Haram and they very amused of us.

I think Halal or Haram is cruel for us that think it's good. Do not judge of something that you think it's right, just go...& seek...through deeply... across all nations and religions...