How the media skews the debate on non-stun slaughter

We are all familiar with how the media frames particular topics in order to attempt to influence the public’s response. The issue of non-stun slaughter is no exception. This 2018 article from MailOnline, reporting on horrific animal cruelty at the Bowood Lamb abattoir and which is often referred to by those who want to ban non-stun slaughter, is a good example of that.

ANALYSIS

The headline refers to “secret footage of halal killing” and to workers “HACKING and SAWING at sheep’s throats”, with the capitalisation ensuring that the reader gets the point. Examples of said hacking and sawing are shown in the two pictures below. Right from the off, the newspaper appears to be seeking to connect halal (and, by implicit extension, kosher) slaughter methods with cruelty to animals of barbaric proportions.

The three bullet points at the top refer to “unnecessary suffering”, “slaughterhouse brutality” and “hacking and sawing”. Immediately below, in the first line of the first paragraph, we read that this took place at “a halal abattoir”. Again, the reader is invited to draw a connection between *halal slaughter methods* and *unspeakable cruelty to animals*.

Further detail is provided in paragraph 3, which refers not only to hacking and sawing, but also to sheep being kicked in the head and hurled into metal walls. The paragraph also tells us that this conduct came to light after being secretly filmed by Animal Aid.

In paragraph 4, we are told that the Food Standards Agency does not check whether halal meat is prepared according to religious rules. This is an important point, because it (correctly) suggests that (a) religious rules do not permit the cruelty the article refers to and (b) that the FSA either does not have the power to inspect whether religious rules are being complied with, and/or that it does have the power to do so, but is failing to make the checks anyway.

In paragraph 5, we are told that the law “requires abattoirs to stun animals before slaughter to prevent unnecessary suffering, but there are exemptions for Jewish and Muslim producers”. The implication is that Jewish and Muslim producers cause unnecessary suffering to animals. The writer does not tell us that this claim is hotly contested, with scholars such as Dr Temple Grandin arguing that when non-stun slaughter is performed correctly, “the animal appears not to feel it“.

Only in paragraph 6 are we told that under Islam’s halal code (the “religious rules” referred to in paragraph 4), “animals are supposed to be killed quickly, with a single sweep of a surgically-sharp knife. They should not see the knife before they are slaughtered, or witness the death of other animals.” In paragraph 7, we are (correctly) told that many of those practices were flouted at the Bowood Lamb abattoir. More detail is given in paragraph 8: ee are told of staff taunting the animals, waving knives in front of them, smacking them on the head and shouting at them. In other words, it is not until the reader gets to paragraphs 7 and 8 that s/he is informed that – contrary to the article’s headline – the cruelty which took place at Bowood was in spite of it being a halal abattoir, rather than because of it. Putting it differently, the conduct that took place at Bowood fell short of halal standards, rather than being a manifestation of halal standards.

In paragraph 9, we are told of calls “for CCTV to be installed in all abattoirs to prevent similar cruelty, and a ban on the practice of killing animals without stunning them first, which is allowed for Jewish and Muslim producers”. Two separate issues are thereby conflated: (i) the undeniably cruel practices referred to in paragraph 8 and (ii) the Jewish and Muslim practice of non-stun slaughter.

Most of the rest of article (paragraphs 11-21) covers the trial of the abattoir workers. Here are some of the charges that were brought against them:

• causing unnecessary suffering to sheep by lifting them by their fleeces during the slaughter practice (paragraph 13)
• Failing to give sheep sufficient time to lose consciousness after they were slaughtered (paragraphs 14 and 15)
• Failing to cut the throats of six sheep in the required manner with a single cut (paragraph 15)
• Failing to prevent acts by several employees that causes animals to suffer (paragraph 16)

What we are not explicitly told is that all of those actions were in breach of the existing law on killing animals in accordance with religious rites, which are set out in Schedule 3 of The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015. In particular: paragraph 5 of that Schedule sets out requirements on the method of killing; paragraph 6 sets out a requirement that the animal must be allowed to lose consciousness and that a certain amount of time must be allowed to pass before it is moved in any way. It is precisely because the Bowood workers breached those existing legal requirements, that they were prosecuted.

The final four paragraphs of the MailOnline article set out the reaction of Animal Aid, which is worth reproducing in full (emphasis added):

‘Bowood Yorkshire Lamb was the tenth slaughterhouse in which we had filmed undercover since January 2009.

‘We didn’t know what we would find when our cameras were planted, including that it was a halal establishment – the first we had investigated. We have now investigated 14 slaughterhouses, and all but two have stunned the animals before killing them.

‘We found evidence of lawbreaking in the vast majority of slaughterhouses, including animals being kicked, punched in the face, given electric shocks, burnt with cigarettes and thrown about prior to having their throats cut.

‘By whatever method animals are killed, or whichever authority presides over the killing, there is no mercy in a slaughterhouse. The animals are traumatised. They don’t want to be killed but they are killed, and for no good reason.’

The extracts I have emphasised are important, because they make the point that cruelty towards animals is not confined to abattoirs where non-stun slaughter is practised: it happens across the board. It follows that banning non-stun slaughter will not eliminate cruelty towards animals. And Animal Aid mentions one particular form of cruelty towards animals – giving them electric shocks – which would be more likely to take place in abattoirs where electrical pre-stunning takes place. Should electrical pre-stunning therefore be banned?

SUMMARY

The MailOnline’s report falls short in the following ways:

1. It fails to spell out clearly that the abuses at Bowood fell short of Islamic slaughter requirements.
2. It instead gives the unwarranted impression that they were a consequence of Islamic slaughter requirements.
3. It appears to invite readers to support a ban on non-stun slaughter.
4. Although it mentions that animal cruelty takes place at abattoirs where animals are electrically stunned, it does not invite readers to support a ban on electrical stunning.

IMPLICATIONS

The MailOnline report is a poor basis with which to support a ban on non-stun slaughter. Policy makers should instead call for existing laws against animal cruelty – both in abattoirs where animals are stunned before slaughter and in abattoirs where they are not – to be enforced rigorously, and for perpetrators of animal cruelty (whether in halal, kosher or non-religious abattoirs) to be brought to justice.