When Eid al-Adha begins, a crusade for timeless murders begins to win favor from slaughterhouses and leaders
As Turkey prepares for Eid al-Adha, or Qurban Bayram, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, animal rights activists celebrate progress in their efforts to convince leaders, butchers and slaughterhouses of the merits of surprising animals before the ritual slaughter.
Cattle stores across the country were occupied Thursday before the festival began at dusk, and families examined sheep and cows to be slaughtered in honor of Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael.
Qurban Bayram is the busiest time of year for Turkish farmers and butchers. While some rural families will continue to raise cattle in their own land and ritually slaughter the animals, hygiene regulations mean that maximum killings are now carried out at express sites through trained butchers through the local municipality.
For Asalet Sancakdaro-lu, the Turkish representative of the animal welfare organization Eyes on Animals, the emphasis is on preventing the suffering of animals. To be classified as halal, an animal will have to be alive and healthy, its throat will have to be cut immediately through a Muslim with a sharp knife and the blood will have to be tired of the corpse. Stun the animal first does not contraviate Islamic law, and the Sancakdaro-lu bill is to teach slaughterhouses, devoted leaders and consumers about this fact.
“Most of my task is to spread the message because there are so many misconceptions about halal killing. People fear that it is appropriate for God that the animal is subconscious or that blood will flow properly,” he said.
“When we organize educational workshops, those reservations disappear. Several devoted leaders took seriously what I said and spoke to their fans for the first time about amazing animals: last year, Ismaila’a Cemaati [a giant conservative sect] publicly announced that surprising animals was halal. The Department of Agriculture is also enticing a law that says animals should be slaughtered painlessly.”
Earlier this month, after Turkey’s restrictions on coronaviruses were lifted, Sancakdaro-lu visited an abattoir in the northeast of the country and provided the director with a captive lock gun to knock out the animals before the slaughter. The slaughterhouse now agreed to stun animals that arrive injured at the plant before they are unloaded, and farm animals will be for consumers on request.
Sancakdaro-lu visited 300 of Turkey’s 900 slaughterhouses. So far, only 3 have agreed to move from the traditional to surprising approach, however, he says this is largely due to the low availability of surprising devices and import charges: commercial systems can charge more than 10,000 euros (9030 euros). Gunpowder guns are also bogged down in customs procedures because they are classified as weapons.
“Some corporations have informally told me that they are already crippling animals, but they don’t tell their customers,” Sancakdaro-lu said. “It’s faster, safer and cleaner, so they make more money. It’s just that public opinion is that it’s not halal.”
There is also room for improvement in the transfer and shipment of animals in Turkey, said Lesley Moffat, director of Eyes on Animals.
Turkey’s livestock demand is expanding every year, and domestic livestock production expanded to 3 million in 2019, 4.7% more than in 2018. In just one year, Turkey has gone from animal imports worth $600 million (457 million pounds) in 2016 to $1.2 billion in 2017, the vast majority of which come from the EU, according to TurkStat, the Turkish statistical authority. Sometimes animals are neglected in hot and narrow boxes for days on the Bulgarian-Turkey border.
“Turkey has a long way to go, but it is neither greater nor worse than other countries when it comes to the inhumane cattle remedy,” he said. “Our paintings so far show that more and more people are interested in animal welfare and that replacement is possible.”