ABTTF President: ‘Following the decision of the Council of State, it has emerged that there is a need for the Parliament to update the 1981 law or to enact a new law which would allow the sacrificial rites in accordance to religious duties and which would fully respect the freedom of religion of the Turkish community in Western Thrace and the other Muslim and Jewish communities living in our country’.
In Greece, the Council of State recently banned the slaughter of animals in the country without being knocked out in accordance with a 1981 law, saying it violated Greek and European Union (EU) legislation. The decision of the Council of State also overturned the 2017 decision of the Council of Ministers, which allowed animals to be slaughtered without being fainted on the holy days of Islam and Judaism.
‘The latest decision of the Council of State as regards the slaughter of sacrificial animals is a sensitive issue that is of great interest to the Turkish community in Western Thrace and other Muslim communities living in our country Greece. The 2017 decision of the Council of Ministers allowed animals for the Muslim and Jewish communities to be slaughtered in the slaughterhouse without being fainted as an exception to the 1981 law, provided that there was a strict balance between animal rights and freedom of religion. The Council of State overturned the decision of the Council of Ministers. However, in its decision, the Council of State interpreted animal slaughter in a narrow framework, only as slaughtering animals and storing meat, and did not interpret it as a religious duty within the context of religious freedom. At this point, the state or communities will have to undertake the construction of new slaughterhouses themselves, as the need for them will arise following the decision of the Council of State as regards the slaughter of animals without being fainted. Therefore, it has emerged that there is a need for the Parliament to update the 1981 law or to enact a new law which would allow the sacrificial rites in accordance to religious duties and which would fully respect the freedom of religion of the Muslim and Jewish communities’ said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
