London – Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister of the U.K., ruled out banning religious slaughter of animals even if Muslims and Jews do not implement more humane methods of slaughter.
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The Times of London (http://thetim.es/MRAcDs) reports Clegg doesn’t believe that government should put themselves in the middle of religious beliefs handed down through the generations and does not agree with the suggestion by John Blackwell, president-elect of the British Veterinary Association, that traditional religious slaughter for kosher meat should be banned.
Blackwell’s current stance is that not stunning the animals before slaughter causes unnecessary suffering. This opinion pushes further past the association’s previous position, which opposed religious slaughter without stunning but focused on conciliations like improved labelling.
Blackwell wants government to consider following in Denmark’s footsteps, who recently banned the slaughter of animals who aren’t stunned first.
This is the first time the British Veterinary Association has requested the end of kosher slaughter without stunning. More than 600,000 animals are slaughtered in religious practices every week in Britain.