"A Daily Massacre of Animals..."

Brigitte Bardot has posted this letter at her website. On March 30, it was published in the daily Le Parisien with her signature:

Almost fifty years ago, in 1962, when I was a young woman, I waged my first combat against the torture of animals when I denounced the horror of slaughterhouses, long before the massacre of baby seals. After years of efforts, the stunning of animals before bloodletting became obligatory (Article R. 214-70 of the rural code).

Today we are witnessing a frightening regression and a terrifying "I don't care" attitude on the part of guilty authorities when confronted with the offenses in these places of death. Nowadays they slaughter animals alive, without concern about the regulation and even less about the pain that is unbearable and ignoble.

The slaughtered steer take fourteen minutes to lose consciousness. In that time the terrified animal fights and tries to escape. This massacre is a daily event in our slaughterhouses. I can no longer accept this! I beg you to fight by my side.

After these disgusting transgressions, we filed a complaint on February 10, 2011, in the Court of Justice of the Republic, against Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux and Minister of Agriculture Bruno Le Maire.

Note: The above refers to legal action she has taken against the two ministers for not withdrawing special permits granted to certain slaughterhouses to kill without stunning. She also denounced a derogation allowing religions to bypass the obligation to stun before slaughtering. According to her Foundation, the use of this derogation has become "systematic".

I am no longer a young woman, I cannot start the same fight all over again, and so I demand of the government that it apply French and European law in the slaughterhouses.

It is inadmissible and illegal that in Ile-de-France, 100% of the animals are slaughtered alive, without stunning, in conditions of abject violence and inhumanity, with the obvious intent to hide this scandal from consumers, since no labeling indicates the method of slaughter.

The Minister of Agriculture has sufficient financial means to monitor the slaughterhouses, verify the condition of the equipment (neglected) and especially to make certain the animals do not suffer any additional torment, which seems to me to be the very least that we owe them. Yet this very ministry prefers to spend millions of euros in taxpayers' money for mendacious propaganda promoting intensive breeding!*

We are all assassins but, I beg you, do not allow their deaths to be a torture!

*It also subsidizes corrupt breeders who respect no rules.

Here is a synopsis of the video (below) produced by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation:

The speaker reviews the content of Bardot's letter. She warns that some of the images coming up are very graphic.

The next scene shows a young woman who raises bovine animals. She says she loves her animals and hates to send them to be slaughtered, but since she must she wants them to suffer as little as possible. She wants them to be stunned before they are killed.

The next scene shows the action of stunning an animal.

The speaker says that stunning has been obligatory since 1986, except in the case of ritual slaughter. Kosher and halal meat come from an animal slaughtered while alive. (Note: at this point the images are upsetting)

For many years these practices were separate, but due to economic concerns everything is mixed together.

A former slaughterhouse employee confirms that the two kinds of meat (regular and ritual) are combined into one. The consumer knows nothing.

About 30% of bovines and up to 60% of sheep are slaughtered without being first stunned.

A representative of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation says that when an animal is slaughtered without being stunned, there is no one there to verify that the meat really corresponds to a need. They do anything they want and there is no labeling. Nor is there any desire to change.

The meat packers won't meet the press, except for Charal. The CEO explains that even though there is no labeling, all animals are stunned before slaughter.



On a related topic, here is an item from Samson Blinded, an Israeli website, about a move in the Netherlands to restrict ritual slaughter:

Jewish organizations are running at full steam fighting a proposed bill in the Netherlands which would restrict religious forms of animal slaughter. Such energy was not seen even in the days when Soviet Jews could not emigrate from their communist prison, nor is it seen today when Israel faces international condemnation.

The bill would generally require that animals must be stunned before slaughter; a very sensible and humane measure. The problem is that ultra-strict rabbis interpret stunning as a form of mutilation, which disqualifies the animal as food. In truth, such mutilation would only disqualify it as a sacrifice, and there is no Temple to sacrifice them to in the first place. Besides, stunning is not mutilation, and this case closely parallels Jewish law that allows criminals to be rendered unconscious before execution.

Even so, Jews would be able to continue shechita slaughter, with the only requirement being that the meat must be marked accordingly. Jewish meat processors claim that this requirement would drive them out of business because currently 3/4 of their meat is sold to gentiles for being not strictly kosher. But Jews at the time of Moshe did not throw away 3/4 of their meat; obviously, current halachic regulations are overly strict. Finding his community in a similar situation, Rashi relaxed the shechita laws. Another option would be to accept that a handful of Jewish meat processors would be driven out of business, and kosher meat imported from more permissive jurisdictions.

On the positive side, the proposed bill would greatly afflict Muslim communities in the Netherlands who wouldn’t be able to practice halal slaughter.

Here is the opening of Wikipedia's page on shechita (ritual slaughter) that gives more details on the strictness of the procedure:

Shechita (Hebrew:שְׁחִיטָה; also transliterated shechitah, shehitah, shehita) is the ritual slaughter of mammals and birds according to Jewish dietary laws. The act is performed by severing the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins using an extremely sharp blade ("chalef"), and allowing the blood to drain out.

The animal must be killed with respect and compassion by a shochet (ritual slaughterer), a religious Jew who is duly licensed and trained. The animal can be in a number of positions; when the animal is lying on its back, this is referred to as shechita munachat; in a standing position it is known as shechita me'umedet.

If the hindquarters of kosher mammals are to be eaten by Jews, they must be 'porged' - stripped of veins, chelev (caul fat and suet) and sinews in accordance with a strict procedure. Because of the expense of porging and the skill required to properly separate out the forbidden parts, a large portion of the meat of kosher mammals slaughtered through shechita in the United States winds up on the non-kosher market.