AMSTERDAM — It has not been a good year for Ahmet Kilic. Sales are down in the store where for the last two and a half years he has sold groceries and meat, slaughtered according to halal conditions. The store, on the southern edge of this Dutch city, was started 22 years ago by his brother and uncle, natives of Turkey, who took it over from its former Dutch owners.
But many of the Turks who are their clients have moved farther out of the city; moreover, customer access is blocked by work to lay tram tracks on the street in front.
“Things are not good,” he said, tallying up sausage, an all-beef variety, and Turkish white cheese, which the Greeks call feta, for a shopper.
Now he fears they could get worse. The Dutch Parliament will vote Tuesday on a bill that, if enacted, will effectively require even Jewish and Muslim butchers to stun animals — mechanically, electrically or with gas — before they are slaughtered, eliminating an exception in current law.
A tiny animal rights party, which has two seats in Parliament, proposed the bill, arguing that failing to stun the animals before slaughter subjects them to unnecessary pain.
Categories: Islam, Law and Religion, Religion