12 June 2012
The Dutch Upper House has rejected a ban on ritual animal slaughter without anaesthetizing animals first. Earlier this month Jewish and Islamic organizations had agreed to an agreement stipulating that ritual slaughter was permitted in the case that an animal would be dead forty seconds after the cut was administered to its neck.
Following the agreement, Animal Rights Party member Marianne Thieme has debated the bill in the Dutch Senate. This is the second time the bill has been debated in the Senate: the bill was passed with large majority in the Lower House in June 2011, but stalled in the Upper House in December 2011.
