European Jewish groups vow to fight Dutch ritual slaughter ban
Two leading Jewish organizations in Europe vowed on Wednesday to fight a looming ban on ritual animal slaughter in the Netherlands approved by the lower house of the Dutch parliament in a bid to protect animal rights.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) announced it was considering taking legal action to block the ban, which it said violated the freedom of religion enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights.
The Conference of European Rabbis (CER) appealed to the Dutch Senate, which must approve the bill before it can become law, to block the ban that the lower house approved on Tuesday.
The bill by the small Animal Rights Party united both Jews and Muslims in protest because it would ban kosher and halal slaughter, which requires animals be conscious when killed.
European Union regulations say animals must be stunned before slaughter to minimize pain, but allow exceptions for the ancient religious traditions behind kosher and halal laws.
Animal Rights Party leader Marianne Thieme said she would also lobby Senate members. “I’m completely confident that I can remove any concerns that still exist,” she told the daily De Telegraaf. “This is absolutely not a religious issue.”
Dutch vote to ban ritual animal slaughter, Jews and Muslims unite in protest
The Dutch parliament voted on Tuesday to ban ritual slaughter of animals, a move strongly opposed by the country’s Muslim and Jewish minorities, but left a loophole that might let religious butchering continue. The bill by the small Animal Rights Party, the first such group in Europe to win seats in a national parliament, passed the lower house of parliament by 116 votes to 30. It must be approved by the upper house before becoming law. It stipulates that livestock must be stunned before being slaughtered, contrary to the Muslim halal and Jewish kosher laws that require animals to be fully conscious.
“This way of killing causes unnecessary pain to animals. Religious freedom cannot be unlimited,” said Marianne Thieme, head of the Animal Rights Party, said before the vote. “For us religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins.”
In a rare show of unity, the Netherlands’ Muslim and Jewish communities — numbering about 1 million and 40,000 respectively in a total population of 16 million — have condemned the proposed ban as a violation of their religious freedom. “The very fact that there is a discussion about this is very painful for the Jewish community,” Netherlands Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs told Reuters. “Those who survived the (second world) war remember the very first law made by the Germans in Holland was the banning of schechita or the Jewish way of slaughtering animals.”
Uca Octay of Rotterdam’s Islamic University said: “We will have to import halal meat from neighboring countries or find another way to meet the needs of the Muslim population. Becoming vegetarian could be an option as well.”
The law said religious groups could continue ritual slaughter if they proved it was no more painful than stunning, but it was not clear how to do this. The Jewish community has challenged a study on animal pain used to support the ban.
Chief Rabbi Jacobs said the exemption in the law stipulated “that we must prove the animal slaughtered the Jewish way suffers less or the same as with stunning, but this absolutely impossible to prove. You can’t ask the animal how it feels afterwards. Nobody can prove this.” He said that he’s been getting calls from many people in his constituencey to ask what the ban could mean for them. “Old people are scared and young people who are just married are calling me to ask if they should stay here, today it is the schechita and tomorrow what, circumcision? People are afraid.”
“Holland is a sophisticated country and other countries look to Holland as an example, and we are afraid of the domino affect, that other countries will follow. This is the reason so many countries are watching the Netherlands today, ” he said.
Speaking as a Jew, I would like to offer my support in your decision to abolish as unlawful the Kosher Slaughter method.
This slaughtering method inflicts a lot of unnecessary pain upon the slaughtered animal, which can and should be prevented.
Rabbis have been finding all sorts of ways to bend and go-around the orthodox Jewish traditions and laws, in order to enable acceptance of modern comforts into Jewish way of life. This important issue should be no different.
It’s time to stop this barbarous ceremony! It’s more than possible to be a Jew without it!
My congratulations on your initiative to reduce pain!
Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, aka Dr. Death, dies
Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as “Dr. Death” for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early on Friday at age 83, his lawyer said. Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian’s attorney and friend.
Kevorkian, a pathologist, was focused on death and dying long before he became a defiant advocate, crossing Michigan in the rusty Volkswagen van that carried his machine to help sick people end their lives. He launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer’s patient to kill herself using a machine he had devised. He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second-degree murder in 1999.
Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years for second-degree murder and was paroled in 2007. As a condition of his parole, he vowed not to assist in any suicides. He was convicted after a CBS News program aired showing a video of Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Read the full story by Bernie Woodall here. See also our factbox on Kevorkian.
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Muslim Brotherhood says it won’t force Islamic law on Egypt
The Muslim Brotherhood wants a diverse parliament after elections in September and is not seeking to impose Islamic law on Egypt, the head of the group’s newly formed political party said in an interview. The Brotherhood, which has emerged as a powerful force after years of repression under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, has said it does not want a parliamentary majority, although rivals see it as well placed for a dominant position.
“We only use Islam as the basis of our party … which means that our general framework is Islamic sharia … We don’t issue religious rules in individual cases,” said Mohamed Mursi, head of the Brotherhood’s newly formed Justice and Freedom Party, which will contest the vote.
Liberal Egyptians in particular worry that the group could use for its own ends the second article of Egypt’s constitution, which makes sharia, Islamic law, a main source of legislation. Egypt’s military rulers suspended the old constitution and introduced an interim one, but that article was unchanged.
Mursi, speaking in the group’s new five-storey headquarters in Mokattem on the outskirts of Cairo, dismissed such worries. “We want to engage in a dialogue not a monologue,” he said. “The Brotherhood does not seek to control the parliament … We want a strong parliament … with different political forces.”
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Huge Manila human cross for Lent, against abortion
Thousands of Filipinos lined up across a football field in Manila to mark the start of Lent by forming a human cross they hoped would go down as the world’s biggest. Officials at the University of Santo Tomas, a Catholic university that at 400 years old is the nation’s oldest, said the Ash Wednesday event was also a proclamation of the school’s stand against abortion and a controversial bill on reproductive health currently being debated.
More than 20,000 people, including students, faculty members and university personnel, the students wearing black t-shirts or white school uniforms, stood side by side to form a two-colored Dominican cross while prayers were recited and songs sung.
“Forming this biggest cross will make people remember that the Lenten season is all about Christ,” said speech pathology student Erika Claire Gomez. Information about the cross will be sent to Guinness for verification.
In Catholic churches around the country, Filipinos — around 80 percent of whom are Catholic — observed Ash Wednesday by attending Mass and having a cross drawn on their foreheads with ashes. Many will fast or make other sacrifices for the 40-day Lenten period. On Tuesday, lawmakers opened debate on a reproductive health bill that seeks to improve access to information on contraception but faces strong opposition from the country’s influential Roman Catholic bishops.
Read the full story by Michaela Cabrera here.
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France to enforce ban on full Muslim face veils from April
France will start enforcing a ban next month on full Islamic face veils, officials said on Thursday, meaning any veiled woman can be summoned to a police station and asked to remove her face-covering or pay a fine. Officials say the law is mainly symbolic and police will not call in every veiled woman they see to avoid stigmatising Muslims.
The ban forbids wearing any garment concealing the face in a public space, namely the street, public transport, shops, schools, courtrooms, hospitals and government buildings. From April 11, police are instructed to summon veil-wearers to a station, where they will be asked to remove the garment for “identification” and leave it off. If the wearer refuses to remove it they will be fined up to 150 euros ($208).
When France passed the ban on full face veils last year, Muslim leaders voiced concern it could lead to veiled women being unfairly treated by police or singled out for harassment. “My gut reaction is to say this is all a bit clumsy,” said Moussa Niambele, the imam of a mosque in the north of Paris. “You are stopped in public by the police and forced to follow them to the station like an undesirable person. This is altogether too much ceremony.”
France’s Muslim community of 5 million is Europe’s largest. Fewer than 3,000 women wear the face veil, the goverment says. As part of its public relations effort, the government plans to roll out a website with the URL “www.visage-decourvert.gouv.fr” (which translates as “uncovered-face.gouv.fr”) and print posters and pamphlets to be passed out in city halls.
Read the full story by Nick Vinocur here. Here is the full text of the decree in French.
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Factbox – Pakistan’s blasphemy law strikes fear in minorities
Pakistani Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, who had called for changes in the country’s controversial blasphemy law, was killed in a gun attack in Islamabad on Wednesday, officials said. The anti-blasphemy law has been in the spotlight since November when a court sentenced a Christian mother of four to death, in a case that has exposed deep rifts in the troubled Muslim nation of more than 170 million people.
While liberal Pakistanis and rights groups believe the law to be dangerously discriminatory against the country’s tiny minority groups, Asia Bibi’s case has become a lightning rod for the country’s religious right. In January, the governor of the most populous state of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who had strongly opposed the law and sought presidential pardon for the 45-year-old Christian farmhand, was gunned down by one of his bodyguards angry about the governor’s stand.
Here some facts about the blasphemy law:
* The law has its roots in 19th century colonial legislation to protect places of worship, but it was during the
military dictatorship of General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s that it acquired teeth as part of a drive to Islamise the state.
* Under the law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty but activists say the vague terminology has led to its misuse. The law stipulates that “derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”
* Christians who make up 4 percent of Pakistan’s population have been especially concerned about the law saying it offers them no protection. Convictions hinge on witness testimony and often these are linked to personal vendettas, they say.
Christian Pakistani minister shot dead in Islamabad ambush
Pakistani Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, who had called for changes in the country’s controversial blasphemy law, was killed in a gun attack in Islamabad on Wednesday, officials said. Police said the shooting took place near an Islamabad market. Bhatti, a Roman Catholic, was the only Christian in the Pakistani cabinet.
“The initial reports are that there were three men who attacked him. He was probably shot using a Kalashnikov, but we are trying to ascertain what exactly happened,” said Islamabad police chief Wajid Durrani. A hospital spokesman said Bhatti had several bullet wounds.
The anti-blasphemy law has been in the spotlight since last November, when a court sentenced a Christian mother of four to death. On Jan. 4 the governor of the most populous province of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who had strongly opposed the law and sought presidential pardon for the 45-year-old Christian farmhand, was gunned down by one of his bodyguards.
Under the law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty, but activists say the vague terminology has led to its misuse.
Read the full story by Zeeshan Haider and Chris Allbritton here.
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U.S. churches could benefit from new community radio law
A tiny nonprofit organization operating a national campaign from the basement of Calvary United Methodist Church in Philadelphia for 12 years to get more non-commercial radio stations approved may soon see its dream come true.
On January 4, the nonprofit Prometheus and other groups seeking to diversify media ownership, scored a victory when President Barack Obama signed into law the Local Community Radio Act. It directs the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the national airwaves, to allow more low-power stations access to the FM radio dial.
Once implemented, the law is expected to result in as many 2,000 new stations, beginning in about 2013. That would more than double the approximately 800 low-power stations currently in operation, compared with around 13,000 commercial stations nationwide. “It makes a lot more room on a medium (FM radio) that a lot of people still use,” said Prometheus founder Pete Tridish.
An increase in community stations could mean more coverage of local issues such as school board meetings, high school football games, health, education, local music, and literacy campaigns. Since about half the existing low-power FM stations are owned by churches, some of the new material is also likely to be religious.
Read the full story by Jon Hurdle here.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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To suggest that repugnant acts are beyond question only because someone invokes the magical word religion is preposterous! Cruel and barbaric behavior should not be allowed to hide behind the shield of religious freedom any longer! And what rational person believes that the blood of sacrificial animals appeases their god???