The Brussels Regional Parliament has voted to keep Shechita legal in a victory for Jewish campaigners.
Shimon Cohen, the Campaign Director of Shechita UK, said the assembly had “stood for religious freedoms” in a rebuke to those who sought to ban the practice.
He said: “We welcome the Brussels Parliament vote to maintain Shechita in the region and pay tribute to Chief Rabbi Guigui for his efforts.
“Previous bans in Wallonia and Flanders greatly inhibited the religious Jewish communities in those areas, blatantly and worryingly disregarding their religious freedoms.
“In order for a country to be said to value and adhere to human rights, they must, by definition, allow Jewish religious communities to maintain their religious lifestyle.”
On June 9, a parliamentary committee voted to reject a ban on ritual slaughter proposed by Brussels Minister for Animal Welfare, Bernard Clerfayt.
Today, the parliament’s general assembly voted to support that decision by 42 to 38. There were eight abstentions.
The attempt to ban shechita followed a ruling by Belgium’s Constitutional Court to uphold a European Court of Justice decision that EU member states can ban slaughter without pre-stunning.
Kosher slaughter is already illegal in Wallonia and Flanders, Belgium’s two other regions, where the Jewish population has resorted to importing meat.
Commenting on today’s verdict, European Convention of Rabbis President Pinchas Goldschmid said: “We stand in full agreement with the ruling of the Brussels Parliament, declaring Shechita and Halal to be legal.
"The bans on non-stunned slaughter enacted in the Belgium regions of Flanders and Wallonia in 2020 prohibited Shechita and Halal, blatantly trampling on the religious freedoms of the Jewish and Muslim communities, hundreds of thousands of Belgium citizens.
“These unsolicited bans have a dark historical precedent; rather than ushering in a future of increased animal welfare, these alarmingly legislative prohibitions are instead a harsh, destructive step backward.
"The law should never be used as an unsolicited weapon against religious communities.
“The vote of the Brussels regional Parliament on Friday, declaring that these religious methods of slaughter are not illegal thereby restores such religious rights in the country. We pay tribute to Chief Rabbi Guigui and Rabbi Bruno Fiszon for their efforts.”
