The Barnabas Fund vs Halal

From a brochure for the recent Second World Halal Forum Europe, subtitled Halal Products & Services – Going Mainstream:

WHF EUROPE RESOLUTIONS:

The World Halal Forum recognises the importance of animal welfare in the production of Halal food especially in the context of religious slaughter. The forum has resolved that organisations and communities involved in Halal food production should explore ways to reduce pain, distress and other welfare problems in the sourcing and treatment of animals during rearing, transport and slaughter. The World Halal Forum should collaborate with academic researchers and other experts in investigating the welfare implication and acceptability of different practices including pre-slaughter methods of restraint and applications to minimise pain and distress at the time of slaughter.

Halal values and principles are in line with those of Fair Trade. The forum resolved to work towards the integration of Halal with Fair Trade.

The forum resolved to work towards a European Halal Regulations and Accreditation system, starting with a single country as a pilot project, with the country proposed being the United Kingdom.

The Forum is backed by the Malaysian government, and the above has now generated a conspiracy theory for why Halal food is so widely available in the UK. Step forward Andrea Minichiello Williams, of the Alliance Defense Fund-associated UK group Christian Concern:

Halal and Polygamy – Whose Culture Do We Want?

How far are we willing to let our society be influenced by the demands of Islam and its encroaching culture?

One area of Islamification that has come to light recently concerns the food that we eat. Islamic food agencies are pushing to integrate halal into the mainstream market in the UK. The World Halal Forum held its annual conference in London earlier this month and has identified the UK as a pilot project for halal in Europe.

Consequently it has been discovered that halal meat has been regularly and secretly served in many places from Wembley and Ascot to Cheltenham College and even to MPs in Parliament!

Surely it can’t be right to force ritually slaughtered meat onto consumers? Are we really willing to be imposed upon like this? Please join me in resisting this imposition by boycotting places that don’t clearly label halal meat and give non-halal options. Please sign the Operation Nehemiah petition here.

Operation Nehemiah is run by the Barnabas Fund (previously blogged here); the organisation explains its campaign its website:

Halal food is being introduced secretly. All over Britain, schools, hospitals, pubs and sporting venues (including Ascot and Twickenham) are serving halal meat, often without informing the public. For example, all the beef, chicken and lamb sold to soccer fans at Wembley is halal-compliant, but the public has not been informed. Whitbread, Britain’s largest hotel and restaurant group, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, has admitted that more than three-quarters of its poultry is halal. Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust in London serve halal meat without notifying the public. Ascot racecourse justified its actions by claiming that it was easier to store and cook only one type of meat: “All our chicken is halal. This is not advertised as the menus are kept as simple as possible.”

It has also been alleged that some big supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Somerfield and the Co-op are selling unlabelled halal meat products.

…Although Muslims make up only some 3% of the UK population, halal meats now make up 11 % of all meats sold in the UK. Halal is being used as an underhanded way of furthering the Islamisation of the country.

…Some see this as appeasement of the Muslim communities in the face of their increasingly assertive demands. Others see it as discrimination against non-Muslims, who in circumstances will be forced to eat Muslim religious food. Still others see it as undermining Western secular values.

Many Christians in particular are uneasy about buying halal food or other products because of its inseparable association with Islamic da’wa. They see such purchases as advancing the cause of global Islam, and of Islamist radicalism in particular, and as putting them implicitly under the authority of Islamic sharia. For this reason, while in no way objecting to the provision of halal products for Muslim consumers, they argue that these should not be forced on the non-Muslim community or sold without appropriate labelling. Christian farmers also do not want to be responsible for sacrificial slaughter of animals to Allah.

…We give due weight to the argument, on grounds of religious liberty, that halal slaughter should not be prohibited by law, and we acknowledge the different views held among Christians (and others) regarding its alleged cruelty.

There is also a mention of “the Biblical teaching on the eating of foods associated with non-Christian religious practice and its spiritual and social effects within the Christian community” – presumably a strained reference to 1 Corinthians 8: 4-13.

This is not the first complaint against halal meat; back in April, the English Defence League rallied to the cause of the KFC Bacon Boxmaster.

What will the meat-buying experience be like for non-believers after Islamification is complete?

(H/T to a reader)

23 Responses

  1. How is it “Fair Trade” when they go all the way to Australia and New Zealand for “Halal Meat”. Why not Russia, northern Africa and other places near Europe?

    Legitimate Halal Food can only be found in Muslim countries, all other are suspect. The same Anglo-Saxons who use to import meat and poultry from British outposts have replanted themselves to enter Middle East markets with stooges from Malaysia and Kuwait who own the majority of the logistics including ships.

    The Health and Safety guidelines now in place are enaugh to satisfy Halal meat production. So I purchase mine from Morrisons, and mostly Irish meat.

  2. Halal meat is for the birds and in its origins was but some lame attempt to appropriate Jewish dietary laws on the part of clueless Muslim clerics. It is now just a roundabout tax that enterprising islamist mafiosos impose on non-muslims.

    ‘Kashruth’ for drooling simpletons.

    I often buy breakfast at McDonald’s and it’s a breakfast menu in which every item contains pork, be it bacon, sausage or ham. I often seen pious Muslims ( men in beards and skullcaps and women in hijabs) pop in and purchase a muffin and coffee. The same hands that manipulate products containing pork are the some ones handing them their coffee and muffin.

    I’ve yet to see a single orthodox Jew do likewise.

    Similarly, I’ve frequently seen pious muslims ( again in hijabs and such) chowing down at chinese buffets where the steam tables are just laden with pork products.

    I,ve yet to see a single Orthodox Jew do likewise.

    Halal meat is nothing but an extortion racket designed to siphon off funds from unsuspecting non-Muslim shoppers.

    The fact that so much of it isn’t even labelled as halal ( you’d think it would be given the importance assigned to it by hypocritical islamist mouthpieces) in the hope naive shoppers will buy it by mistake, proves just to what extent the whole subject is but a vulgar shakedown and a scam.

    To purchase it is to purchase pixie dust.

  3. Gawd you can be thick.

    Commercial halal meat is a scam that siphons off money from unsuspecting consumers who don’t realise the meat they’re buying, owing to the fact it isn’t properly identified as halal, has had a small religious tax added.

    Kosher meats are always meticulously identified because it is a question of religious observance, and nor are they shoved into the faces of non-Jews.

    Why should people who are against halal slaughtering practices, and who favour the stunning of animals before killing be forced to buy unidentified Halal meat?

    Also, when Eid occurs during the summer months and sheep are slaughtered in the open air, as is the case in France, within 24 hours there is a spike in food-borne ilnesses in the muslim community.

    Sheep wool is often encrusted with dried manure, and so when some ‘pious’ twerp inserts the knife in the animal’s neck he forces e-coli bacteria directly into the flesh.

    An e-coli infection, if it doesn’t kill you, can result in permenant damage to organs such as the kidneys, and it’s the type of damage that requires expensive medical treatments and drugs for the rest of your life.

    Muslims who eat Eid meat that has been slaughtered outdoors in the heat, the sun, and in such insalubrious conditions are literally eating shit, and those naive non-Muslims who apologise for this and who ridicule those attempting to put an end to the practice are literally killing people.

    • You remind me of a kid who once thought live animals to be inside Halal Butcher shops.

    • If I was to say that June was this blog’s resident nonsensical Islamophobe, would I be correct in my assertion?

      Also, when Eid occurs during the summer months and sheep are slaughtered in the open air…

      Um…no. Eid doesn’t mostly occur in the “summer months”, this year it occurred in autumn, for example. It’s based on the lunar calendar.

      As for the rest of your nutty conspiracy theories…Wow. Just Wow.

      • “Um…no. Eid doesn’t mostly occur in the “summer months”

        Sirnassir and Mihemet, I have to say that neither of you do your argument any credit when you begin it with a misinterpretation of what June says (and that you actually quote – but then proceed to misquote).

        She didn’t say that Eid mostly occurs in the summer months – but simply that when it does.

    • The only one here who’s thick is you, you moronic bigot. You need to stop eating your own horse shit as It’s clearly affected what little brains you had. Eid doesn’t take place in the summer months as you claim, the dates are different each year thanks to the lunar Islamic calender. Nor has there been an E.Coli outbreak linked to Eid meat. Not all Muslims eat halaI either, and neither do Chinese buffets serve only pork(apparently you never got as far as the seafood section or egg fried rice). Doesn’t change the fact that the majority of Muslims do consume halal meat.
      And don’t give me that holier-then-thou Jewish nonsense. There is no difference in the way they slaughter their animals from the Muslims. I’ve seem more Jews, Orthodox and otherwise scarf down ham sandwiches during lunch hour. Last I checked Muslims weren’t having halal certification deceptively branded on bleach or foil paper like the kosher scam artists.

    • I don’t know a whole lot about halal butchering, or kosher either for that matter, although it is pretty widely recognized where I live that kosher meats are of a high quality. I have eaten kosher meats from time to time with not noticeable urges to convert.

      One thing I do know about however, having dappled in spinning at one time, and that is sheep’s fleece. It is true that a portion of the fleece is often encrusted with dried manure. However, it is nowhere near the neck.

    • “Kosher meats are always meticulously identified because it is a question of religious observance, and nor are they shoved into the faces of non-Jews.”

      oN actualy here in the US countless products one finds in the supermarket have tne “K(osher)” symbol on them, even though they are not directed towards Jews per se.

      Everything from chocolate bars to pasta to ketchup have the “K” on them.

      I don’t mind as they don’t taste any different, but to say that nothing equivalent happens with Jews is silly.

  4. Congratulations, June. Your crazy is always impressive.

    Do you check under your bed for muslims?

  5. Halal means permissible. Water is halal. Apples are halal. Most of what you eat is halal. If you want to ban all halal products, go right ahead, but you might be on a bacon only diet for a while (of course, the oil you fry it in is also halal, so use lard instead).

  6. Eid doesn’t take place in the summer months as you claim, the dates are different each year thanks to the lunar Islamic calender. Nor has there been an E.Coli outbreak linked to Eid meat. Not all Muslims eat halaI either, and neither do Chinese buffets serve only pork(apparently you never got as far as the seafood section or egg fried rice).

    Eid is based on the pagan arab moon-god and has a different time slot every year, and so it can and does occure during the summer. Nor is Ramadan a season of fasting. Ramadan is a celebration of bulimia wherein people cram their craws just full of food between sunset and sunup, with the result that most Muslims have really put on the pork by the time it’s over.

    You’re all a bunch of hypocrites. The guardians of you sacred shrines, Mecca and Medina, are whoring, drunken pisstanks, and the whole lot of you just usless and parasitic, unable to survive without Kuffur technology, food, science, money and everything else.

    And who can forget Rifqa Bary’s infamous statement that having accepted Christ, her blood was now halal

    And who can forget the brutal beheading of the wifeof “Bridges” T.V. founder. Islam at its finest! He killed her like a pagan Aztec.

    Halal means permissible. Water is halal. Apples are halal.

    And so are Kuffur pussies, especially when under 14 years of age!

    “Halal” doesn’t exist; it is a superstitious construct resulting from backward tribal beliefs. Anything can be consumed as food, apart from other human beings, providing it is safe and nutritious.

    Magic, pagan incantations won’t destroy the pathogenes in meat.

    • So if Halal is a superstitious construct resulting from backward tribal beliefs, what is kosher?

    • June: rant rant…kuffar…Mooslim hypocrite moon-god-Arab…Mooslim…racist expletive…halal meat…rant rant

      *crickets chirping*

    • June, your hatred of all things Muslim is truly amazing. While scrupulously avoiding any kind of contact that might lead to understanding of either Islam or Muslims, you proclaim yourself an absolute expert on beliefs, practices, even the guidance and understandings found in the Qur’an.

      If Jesus Christ himself appeared before you and commanded you to love your Muslim brethren, I suspect you would renounce him.

    • Wow, June. Not only are you ignorant about Islam and muslims, you dont even know what bulemia is.

      And so are Kuffur pussies

      You’re also a filthy slag. Do you lick your reverend’s ass crack with that tongue?

  7. Just so you know, the man who came up with the “Arab-Moon-God/Allah” idea was so ridiculed by academia, he actually abandoned and distanced himself away from his own theory.

    At least that’s what I’ve heard.

  8. Morey the mendacious MoonGod myth maker & what his fellow Christians think of him.

    http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/viewarticles.php?editorialid=181

  9. Eid is based on the pagan arab moon-god .
    No, the Islamic calender is based on the Lunar cycle. Just like the Jewish calender. Just like the traditional Chinese calender. Just like almost every non-Western calender. Oh, and don’t forget that one well-known Christian festival is based on the “pagan arab moon-god” cycle as well.
    He killed her like a pagan Aztec
    Is there any other kind of Aztec? June, you’ve really shown yourself up as a frothing loony. You need help.

  10. “Halal” or “Haram” … You decide!

    Take the one million Muslims in South Africa, they make up about 2% of its entire population, yet the power they (Muslims) wield is phenomenal.

    In shops and supermarkets, one can hardly buy anything without a “Halal” stamp.
    Almost 80% of the entire foodstuff in a South African supermarket today and most fast food chains bear the “Halal” mark.

    People will notice this emblem on anything from frozen chickens, pies, chips, peanuts, yoghurt, spices, margarine etc.
    Non-Muslims don’t have a choice, either eat the “Halal” products or do without it.

    But why is “Halal” such an issue?
    When Muslims slaughter an animal, the animal is pointed towards Mecca, his throat is slit and the Muslim slaughterer oust the words, “Bismillah, Allah’u Akbar” (In the name of Allah, Allah is the greatest) and therefore sacrifices the animal to his god “Allah”.

    It has to be said that “Allah” is not, and can never be the same as the Christian God. Muslims explicitly deny that Jesus is the son of God and during the conversion of a Christian to Islam he has to specifically repeat after the Imam that he denounces Christ as the son of God, denounce that Jesus died on the cross and denounce that he rose from the dead.

    But what about this ritual, and the prayers to a false God? Several Biblical passages speak of this, including Acts 15:28-29, 1 Cor 8, and 1 Cor 10:14-33. Thus, it’s a sin to consume / use anything with the Islam branding called “Halal”(sometimes spelled “Halaal”) on it.

    Further, the “Halal” stamp is not for free.
    Getting the “Halal” stamp on your product or against your fast food outlet’s wall costs big money.
    It’s a huge cash-earner for the International Muslim community. These hidden surcharges consumers pay for when they unknowingly
    purchase “halal” goods, go straight into the coffers of four local
    Halal” certification bodies in South Africa, that in turn forms part of a huge International network. “Halal” earns $580-billion a year globally,
    according to Khairy Jamalludin, chairman of the World Halal Forum.

    That’s right … food prices are sky-high nowadays, do you still wonder why?

    Muslims and even some Christians think that “Halal” food is somehow cleaner than our food. The absurdity and hypocrisy is clear to anybody who has ever walked through the streets of Cairo, Karachi or any other filthy Muslim city.
    The meat is sold openly on the street with no refrigeration and hordes of flies sitting on it. The filthiest toilets, personal and general hygiene witnessed was in Muslim countries.

    The Halal Fanaticism can be seen in their guidelines, which for instance forbids alcohol consumption in any quantity.
    What someone has failed to tell them is that all ripening fruit naturally gives off ethanol, the same alcohol that is in beer or brandy. It means that Muslims should also stop eating fruit.

    That is not the only absurdity of this “Halal” fanaticism. They say “No Haram products are to be stored or transported together with Halal products.”

    The absurdity goes deeper, because to get your certificate from the Muslim Judicial Council, they come and inspect that the “Halal” food is not kept in the same fridge as the “Haram” (forbidden) food, and that it is not prepared in the same pots or pans or served on the same plates as the “Haram” foods, nor washed together in the same dishwasher or basin.

    The question beckons, “Has anybody ever explained modern water works to Muslims”?
    In major cities around the world, water is recycled and purified.

    The same water used to wash the “Halal” plates are used to wash the “Haram” plates and is recycled, along with lots of other waste water that might even contain pig’s urine.

    Clearly “Halal” is just a cleverly cloaked pyramid scheme that’s fleecing the consumer who is forced to buy “Halal”, and thus also pays the hidden surcharges for the certification, as non “Halal” alternatives are becoming non-existent.

    Everything around Muslims is “Haram” – They cannot escape it.

    Muslims should therefore either…
    6. Stop breathing
    7. Stop drinking water
    8. Stop eating
    9. Start their own ecosystem in a bubble, or …
    10. Alternatively find another planet.

    As closure:

    What are non-Muslim people going to do about this pyramid scheme? – Their governments can’t really be innocent in this matter … can they?
    Do businesses appreciate their non-Muslim customers / consumers?

    Some may say … “Halal” does not harm the consumer. They are missing the point – There is a surcharge involved and therefore “Halal” certification is a financial business that must be regulated – it is NOT just a so-called religious matter.

    Should we allow Islam to impose its laws on us, as in the case of “Halal”?

    I’d say it’s time we realise the fact that Islam is not a religion, it’s an idea filled with contradiction and hypocrisy.

    I’d say it’s time Islam stops robbing the non-Muslim world … how say you?

    I’d say it’s time we stop amusing ourselves to death – We’re becoming a disgrace! We’re contributing financially to our demise!

    Thank you
    Anti Cain.

    So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key. ~ The Eagles.

    • It is very difficult to sort through this brouhaha and understand exactly what the objections are. On the one hand, Christianity does not recognize such a thing as ritualized slaughter–although the Judeo-Christian tradition certainly has a place for nearly identical bans on the mixing of foods, plates dishwashers and so forth. And yet the existence of Kosher meats, markets, foods–or people who follow such dietary laws–does not seem to draw forth such passionate opposition.

      If an animal when slaughtered is aimed in any particular direction and the blessing of a God one believes does not exist is asked, where is the harm? As a Christian, I am firmly wedded to monotheism. All prayer therefore goes to the One God, or goes to no one. It is either all good, or it is nothing–no harm, no foul.

      Is the objection then primarily economic? That some entity is able to extract a value-add from the blessing (whether recognized as valid or not) of the process and product. It is hard to believe that an enhancement that only has value to 2% of the population cannot be omitted in order to offer an equivalent product to 98% of the population at a lower cost, with no loss of profit to the seller.

      If, in fact, such specially blessed meats and foods are routinely prepared under less wholesome conditions, this is a matter for government regulation. In the US, this is a function that covers all food production and there are minimums which must be adhered to. If in another country this is not the case, this is not a religious question, but a governmental weakness.

      However, when such confused and nonsensical objections are raised, is it any wonder that the suspicion is that the root cause is fear or hatred of all things Muslim that underlies it?

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