The New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed the signing of an agreement between the Dutch government and the Jewish and Muslim communities of the Netherlands to protect religious freedom for kosher and halal slaughter while improving animal welfare.
The agreement, signed by Deputy Agriculture Minister Henk Bleker and Jewish and Muslim leaders, upholds the exceptions for of shechita, the Jewish method of slaughtering, and halal slaughter.
Current law allows religious exceptions to the requirement that all animals be stunned before slaughter, but those exceptions had been challenged with a bill by the Party for the Animals (PvdD) passed in the lower house of the Dutch parliament in June 2011.
“Even when the stated purpose is animal welfare, any attempt to ban kosher or halal slaughter is an assault on religious freedom,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
“This agreement demonstrates that creative compromises are possible that protect religious freedom while promoting animal welfare. We congratulate the Dutch government and the Jewish and Muslim religious leaders on finding a responsible resolution to the misguided legislation proposed by the Party for the Animals.”
Under the agreement, slaughter without stunning is permissible in the Netherlands as long as the animal is unconscious within 40 seconds after its neck artery is cut.
If the animal is still conscious after 40 seconds, the agreement requires that it be mechanically stunned.
The agreement was signed on the Jewish side by the NIK, the Organisation of Jewish Communities in The Netherlands . Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs and Ron Eisenmann, President of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, also attended the signing.
The NIK is the sole executor of shechita in The Netherlands, and the only Jewish body in the country which is permitted to perform the slaughtering. “The signing of this covenant ends a process that can be described as a long battle, intense fighting for human rights,” the NIK said.
NIK President, Jacob Hartog: “We have always fought against the perception that the Jewish community did not care about animal welfare. This agreement is further proof that this criticism on the part of the authors of the bill that demanded a stop to Shechita violates the truth.”
Almost a year ago, on June 16, 2011, did the NIK offer to set up a voluntary agreement. The Dutch Agriculture Deputy Minister picked up this invitation and in December announced in the Senate announced that he intended to set up an agreement.
The agreement now established, attempts to ensure that a balance is created between the continuation of the slaughter according to religious rites, based on the traditionally strongly in Dutch society rooted freedom of religion, and conditions for the treatment of the animal before and during slaughter.
NIK Secretary-General Ruben Vis: “We are convinced that our method which is based on religious foundation can continue with this agreement in good harmony with a Dutch government which accommodates the performance of religious rites, which the Jews since their arrival in the Netherlands now about 400 years ago, have always executed freely.”

EJP