- BERN - The Swiss government
has launched a campaign to end a century-old law barring Jewish ritual
slaughter.
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- Launched by Economics Minister Pasqual Couchepin, the
campaign has created a heated outcry against any lessening of the prohibition.
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- It also prompted fears of a widespread anti-Semitic backlash
in a country that has experienced such backlashes in recent years, after
Switzerland came under international pressure to settle a variety of Holocaust-related
claims.
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- In a recent newspaper interview, Couchepin admitted to
some surprise at the stir his proposal has caused. But he said the move
to allow ritual slaughter must be seen as a human rights issue.
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- Noting that an E.U. tribunal ruled that the right to
perform shechita must be respected, he added, "We must decide whether
we want to stand on the side of human rights."
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- Shechita, or Jewish ritual slaughter, is widely believed
to be a humane form of slaughter. But proponents of the Swiss law believe
otherwise.
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- Most European countries--with the exception of Switzerland
and Sweden--permit shechita.
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- Animal rights groups, who have lobbied actively on the
subject, have threatened to seek a national referendum if the government
seeks to allow shechita. The electorate has the right under Swiss law to
hold a referendum on almost any legislative initiative.
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- Observers believe the move to allow shechita would be
defeated in a referendum.
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- A recent government-sponsored survey showed that all
the Swiss cantons, or states, are against allowing shechita.
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- Some historians maintain that the original law, which
went into effect in 1893, was drafted because of anti-Semitism, not to
protect animals.
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- Since the government launched the initiative, Swiss newspapers
have been flooded with letters from animal rights supporters backing the
existing prohibition.
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- Many of the letters have anti-Semitic overtones, with
some referring to shechita as a "holocaust of the animals."
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- Most editorials in Swiss papers speak out against changing
the law.
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- A campaign against overturning the law recently was launched
by Erwin Kessler, who had been sentenced by the Swiss Federal Court in
Lausanne to several months imprisonment for anti-Semitic offenses.
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- Alfred Donath, the president of the Federation of Jewish
Communities, has called for an end to "the discriminating law."
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- But many Swiss Jews are concerned that the government
campaign may only increase anti-Semitism.
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- "We have to ask ourselves if a new wave of anti-Semitism
is in our interests," Peter Abelin wrote in the Jewish magazine Tachles.
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- Comment
- A 'Human Right' To Torture Animals?
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- Name on file 1-9-2
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- The idea that an animal must die a slow, agonizing death
in order for it to be fit for human consumption is perverse. In National
Socialist Germany, the outlawing of this hideous practice became a first
order of business. Other European countries followed suit. Today only two
of them - Sweden and Switzerland - still uphold the ban on this cruel
and unusual procedure. The rest have caved in to political pressures from
people whose peculiar dietary tastes require that an animal not be stunned,
but rather suffer before it is killed.
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