Please don't buy halal

28/ 3/2008

I WAS pleased to see Fred Bell’s letter (Metro News March 14, ‘Baugh should oppose halal’).

It is scandalous that the law allows people to slaughter animals by cutting their throats whilst they are conscious.

Kosher slaughterers also do so. All three main parties have dreadful records in relation to this.

I suggest that you ask every councillor in Greater Manchester, and every MP and MEP who has constituents in Greater Manchester, whether he/she would support a ban on this practice, and publish the responses and the names of any who will not respond.

Incidentally, I understand (from an RSPCA booklet) that some halal slaughterers kill animals humanely, by stunning them before cutting their throats.

However, I have never seen, in any retail outlet, a notice to the effect that halal meat sold there is from humanely killed animals.

The pen can be mightier than the sword, but so can the wallet.

I urge readers not to buy anything from any establishment that sells halal or kosher meat, without good evidence that all the meat is from humanely killed animals. The controlling Labour group of Manchester City Council has a particularly shameful record on this issue.

For years the council has been subsidising meals-on-wheels containing halal meat which my own enquiries have shown not to have been humanely killed.

THOMAS H APPLEBY

Derbyshire Lane, Stretford