Viva! 8 York Court Wilder Street Bristol BS2 8QH Tel: 0117 944 1000 Fax: 0117 924 4646 email: media@viva.org.uk	24 March 1999 Victory for animal welfare as religious home slaughter is banned Viva! claimed a victory for animal welfare today as religious slaughter can no longer take place outside of an abattoir. Viva! has been campaigning against religious slaughter for two years and this marks the end of home religious slaughter. It also means that animals cannot be killed in open fields or farms for Muslim festivals such as Eid el Kabir (27-29 March 1999), where many participants cut the throats of conscious sheep. In Viva!'s religious slaughter report Going for the Kill one witness of Eid el Kabir describes sheep being trussed up with their front and hind legs tied together and kicked along to a killing station. The sheep were placed on a cradle and family members - sometimes children - would cut at the throat. Juliet Gellatley, director of Viva! said: "These were not clean cuts and the sheep would take many minutes to die, jerking and writhing..." These practices have now been outlawed in the UK in an amendment to 'The Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995', which states that from 16 March 1999 religious slaughter will be confined to licensed slaughterhouses. Ms Gellatley says: "This is a great victory for humanity. Animals killed at home by Muslims had, in practice, no legal protection. This amendment in the law will hopefully put an end to the barbaric and outdated practice of butchering animals in back yards - an end to untrained individuals with often blunt knives hacking away at the throats of living, feeling beings." "Ritual slaughter is predicated on a series of myths, one of which is that an animal must remain conscious in order to pump all blood from its body," continues Ms Gellatley. "It makes absolutely no difference whether it is conscious or unconscious, it loses exactly the same amount of blood - about 50 per cent. We are approaching the millennium and it is not acceptable to legitimise animal abuse based on centuries old beliefs which, scientifically, are nonsense. If you look at the original teachings, they had concern for animals at their heart and this addiction to killing is the interpretation of men not the word of God". Viva! welcome the amendments but are continuing to campaign for an end to all religious slaughter. For further information or a copy of Going for the Kill, Viva!'s report on religious slaughter call: Juliet Gellatley on 0117 944 1000.   Note to the editor: Viva!'s campaign to end religious slaughter includes four demands, the latter of which has now been met: 1. The stunning of all animals before their throats are cut; 2. An end to exports of religiously slaughtered meat; 3. The clear labelling of all religiously slaughtered meat sold on the open market; 4. An end to home slaughtering - the loophole in the law which allows mass slaughter to take place.