Posted on 06/08/2011 10:24:23 PM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
Australia late Tuesday suspended its 330 million Australian dollar ($350 million) a year live cattle trade with Indonesia after gruesome televised images exposed slaughterhouse practices there.
The ban will last until proper treatment of the animals has been assured, said Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig, who signed the trade ban on Wednesday. The government had temporarily suspended exports to 11 slaughterhouses after the footage aired nationally last week.
"I want to work with both the industry and the Indonesian government through my department to ensure that we can do this as quickly as possible," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "The suspension is there for up to six months to allow time for this to occur."
Cattle sales agent Tim McHugh said the suspension would have a huge economic impact on cattle ranches across northern Australia, where there are no export meat slaughterhouses.
"This is criminal to think that people can manipulate markets the way they have using emotive issues," McHugh told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Wednesday.
"The reality is that it shouldn't be our responsibility with regard to foreign countries buying our product and what they do with it once it's in their hands," he added.
ABC television on May 30 broadcast footage from Indonesian slaughterhouses that showed steers being whipped and taking minutes to die after their throats were slit repeatedly. Australian slaughterhouses stun the animals first.
The government responded the following day by halting trade with slaughterhouses that featured in the documentary, as Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd assured colleagues that trade suspensions with individual slaughterhouses would not harm Australia's "strong and robust relationship" with Indonesia.
Live Australian cattle account for up to 40 percent of Indonesia's beef consumption, while Indonesia buys 60 percent of Australia's live cattle exports.
About 770 slaughterhouses operate in Indonesia and only five use the stun-gun method, according to Lyn White, campaign director of the animal welfare group Animals Australia, which filmed the footage.
Indonesia's methods of slaughtering animals are based on Islamic teachings, For Riwantoro, a senior official at Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture, told The Associated Press last week.
"We have to protect consumers by ensuring they consume not only healthy and clean meat, but most important, it must be halal," Riwantoro said.
He said without Australian cattle, Indonesia would rely more on local cattle or would look for imports from other countries.
Prime Minster Julia Gillard was quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald saying Australia would work with Indonesians and the cattle industry to bring about changes in the slaughterhouses.
Key lawmakers and Animals Australia and the Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, better known as the RSPCA, had sought the ban on cruelty grounds. The animal welfare groups cooperated with Australian Broadcasting Corp. to produce the television footage aired nationally.
true. but there is plenty of halal products being sold in the USA. and it’s all the same way. no stunning, Islamic prayer, cut throat, bleed out.
...and the USA animal rights people? mostly it’s “crickets”.
(and the Islamic prayer to their God, renders it unusable for some strict interpretations of the Bible. but most people don’t know, how common this is. some airlines serve ALL halal meals, to avoid the cost of doing them separately...
Temple Grandin could indeed show them the right way, however, Jews also kill their cattle by throat cutting. Grandin says that depending on the type of knife used, a cows thraot can be cut so quickly that they will bleed out largely before they feel any pain.
Aside from the cruelty question, do we really need to eat animals that have been sacrificed to allah, aka satan, by a muslim who kills them while facing Mecca?
I sure as hell don’t. And WON’T.
It becomes a problem when the stuff isn't labelled. By this trick, non-muslims are paying the bill for halal certification (along with eating animals sacrificed to satan.) Also, since halal isn't required to be labelled, how many school-kids are being tricked into eating meat sacrificed to satan at supposedly secular government schools?
how many school-kids are being tricked into eating meat sacrificed to satan at supposedly secular government schools?
///
absolutely !
1) if a product has even a hint of pork that isn’t labeled, Muslim can (and have!) sued.
because of their religious beliefs. but our CHILDREN can be given food sacrificed to Allah, against our beliefs, and crickets.
(i haven’t heard of any Churches or Christians who have even tried to sue.)
2) if a school served food blessed in a CHRISTIAN religious ceremony, the ACLU would be all over that.
(Christian children have been suspended for simply praying at lunch over their OWN food...)
...but the ACLU ignores this...
where is PETA?
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