UK: Opinion: Halal industry is being misrepresented by Radicals

The president of the Halal Food Authority has attacked companies that fail to inform customers about the meat they are eating after it emerged that Wembley Stadium provides halal meat as standard. He said: “We absolutely deplore any situation in which people or clients are not informed about the meat they are eating.”

With our researchers we went into Costco and found fresh chicken products displayed in Costco fridges, we found the products correctly labelled as Halal and nothing about non-halal chicken displayed next to each other. Both were produced from the same factory EC3007. The Halal product was displaying a Halal cert from the Halal Food Authority, and signed by their president Mr K Masood, stating that Faccender who slaughter 2.6 million chickens per week from their factory EC3007 have been certified Halal. Last week HFA were advocating clearer labelling why the double standard, we approached HFA for comment, to which they declined.

In Harrow, Sikh representative Paramjit Singh Kohli announced the launch of a petition against the Harrow Council Halal policy last week. He claimed that he will try to collect as many as 2 million signatures from across the UK. What is unknown to him is that the largest owner that produces Halal in the UK is Sikh. The company is called 2 Sisters. The Muslim community have not raised a religious issue about him not being allowed to produce Halal, even though all Muslims are instructed that they must only buy from the people of the Book of the scriptures.

Mr Paramjit Singh Kohli has made no contact with 2 Sisters about labelling everything Halal. By the way, 2 Sisters slaughter approximately 3.6 million fresh Halal chickens every week if any thing it  should be the Muslims that should be concerned  that they are buying from a person who is not from the Book of the scriptures.

Mr Kohli told the Harrow Times in September: “Fish and vegetarian dishes are not the alternative, the alternative is non-halal meat. Those dishes are for the people who are vegetarian and vegan.” He should ask his own community, like the 2 Sisters Group, first to produce non Halal and not blame the Muslim community. Too many are blaming the Muslim community for all this Halal meat in the market, and the truth is its all about economy.

Halal World also hit back at claims Halal meat was tantamount to cruelty to animals. We first looked at battery hens, where over 30 million chickens are caged up, force feed and watered, with just enough light to produce eggs. Is this humane? Secondly there are approximately over 10 million people in the UK population who’s weekly activities involve fishing. They skew a live maggot onto a hook, cast it into the river, to catch a fish with  a hook. They exhaust it until it has no more strength, remove it out of the water and pull the hook out with a pair of pliars. It is held in a keep net and finally let go, or Whacked on the head to kill it. This is classed as sport which is humane .

On the subject of religion last week, Christian Voice raised their view’s on the topic of Halal. What they seem to fail at is outlining the truth. The fact is that Jesus Christ accepted Kosher meat, it was eaten at the last supper with the disciples, which at that period in time was ritually slaughtered. What more endorsement does the Christian Voice want?

Christianity is a religion of truth, Kosher which is similar to Halal was good enough for Jesus, who they call ‘their Lord’, then it has to be good enough for us mere mortals. Please to not hide behind Christianity unless Christian Voice honestly believe that Jesus was wrong.

With the Halal certification process remaining an unmonitored and unregulated activity there is a pressing need for the market to be more structured and more effectively monitored with clear labelling being the key. Many non Muslim owned companies are jumping on the band wagon. The job for the new coalition government is to ensure all communities are safe guarded.

This can be achieved by instructing the meat and hygiene service, who are already on site, to ensure that companies who claim to be producing Halal should label every thing which is Halal – 100%. By labelling every thing correctly this will ensure creditability at no extra cost to the meat and poultry industries here in the UK.

Halal World