Sir, – I must take issue with your Editorial, “Ritual Slaughter” (June 29th) when it states in relation to the non-pre-stunning methods of animal slaughter that “most people find the practice unnecessarily cruel and would wish to ban it”.
That may be the case in European countries. However, I believe that over 1.5 billion Muslims and a few million Jews at least would not agree that it is cruel and indeed would instead argue that it is the “stunning” methods themselves that are cruel and painful in that they mostly involve the driving of a bolt either into or onto the heads of the animals.
But, the real cruelty is man’s presumption that he has a God-given right to take away the lives of other living creatures in the first place, cook them – and in the case of some fish, while they are still alive – and then proceed to eat them. – Yours, etc,