News
MENAW: Egypt and Australia: Aiming towards celebrating with kindness!
December 24, 2007, 10:48AM MT
By Sharon St. Joan
Celebrating Eid el Kebir and Christmas with Compassion
Celebrating Eid el Kebir and Christmas with Compassion
Where are all the sheep?
By Sharon St. Joan, Best Friends Network
Apparently there was a shortage of sheep this year during the festival Eid el Kebir, which took place at the end of last week in Egypt. During the MENAW 2007 Animal Welfare Conference, people in a Cairo café were overheard complaining that there were not enough sheep for the celebration.
Traditionally, each Moslem family slaughters an animal for the festival. Often a sheep, goat, or cow is slaughtered by the roadside just outside the family home.
Sadly, many sheep and other animals were slaughtered for this Eid festival. But not as many as in years past!
Where are all the sheep?
During the October conference held by Animals Australia (which Michael Mountain, President of Best Friends, attended) a shocking video was broadcast on Australian television. Sponsored by a grant from the Marchig Trust, the video of cruel treatment of Australian animals had been filmed by Lyn White, the Communications Director of Animals Australia, during a visit the previous month to Oman, the UAE, Kuwait and Jordan (some of the many Middle East countries that Australia sends live animals to).
On previous Animals Australia investigations Lyn and her co-investigator (from the UK) had first documented the horrors of treatment and slaughter at Cairo’s Bassetin abattoir (January 2006) and then the terrible treatment of Australian sheep in Cairo at last year’s Eid festival (December 2006). The Australian Government has effectively suspended any further trade in live animals to Egypt until they can be assured that Egypt can treat the animals humanely.
So, the untiring work of Animals Australia has meant that no more live animals have been shipped to Egypt from Australia.
The level of cruelty these investigators witnessed is much too disturbing to be described here; however, a video excerpt of the investigation was shown, with a warning about its graphic content, on Australian television, on the public channel ABC, on the “7:30 Report”, a widely watched evening current affairs program. It created something of a sensation among the Australian public, who have previously not allowed themselves to grasp fully either the abuse and cruelty inherent in the lengthy voyages that Australian sheep must endure on their way to slaughter or the brutality of the slaughter itself once they arrive at their destination.
There are no shipments of sheep from Australia to North America and Europe, nor to Asia, so the crux of the problem lies with the Middle East. Ten Middle East countries have been importing sheep from Australia, and so far, investigations have been conducted in seven of these countries.
Focusing on live transport
Glenys Oogjes, the Executive Director of Animals Australia has been a driving force keeping this issue as a major focus for the united work of the forty groups belonging to Animals Australia. This federation brings together wildlife rescue groups, companion animal groups, animal activists, farm animal advocates, and anti-vivisection groups.
Sheep are a significant Australian export, and therefore the live transport issue looms large on the horizon as an economic, as well as humane issue. (However, export of frozen and chilled halal slaughtered sheep meat and beef has been increasing from Australia to the Middle East each year, and in fact now the volume of lamb and mutton meat exports is as high in dollar value as the live sheep trade.)
Because transport by ship takes weeks, and little care is provided for the sheep during transport, the system is fundamentally inhumane. Many sheep die during transport, and many others suffer greatly, for example over 37,000 Australian sheep died on the ships on the way to the Middle East in 2006.
Glenys Ooges explained that through the Australian Freedom of Information Act, Animals Australia was able to obtain the Australian government reports, which the government is required to prepare when there is a high mortality rate on a transport ship. Animals Australia then went a step further, publishing these reports on their website to make the facts available to the public.
A promise broken
Following the earlier Animals Australia investigation of slaughtering conditions in Egypt in January 2006, a Memorandum of Understanding was drawn up, agreed upon by both the Egyptian and Australian governments. In this document, the Egyptian government promised to implement humane handling, transport, and slaughtering procedures. One further shipment from Australia to Egypt followed in October 2006.
Lyn White and her co-investigator traveled to Egypt and documented the terrible treatment of the sheep from that shipment.The specific improvements that the Egyptian government had agreed to did not happen, and consequently Australia has halted its shipments of live animals to Egypt. As of now, this ban is still in effect.
This is the reason, it seems, that there were not enough sheep for Eid this year.
Animals Australia is not asking the difficult or the impossible, only a few simple, precise steps to lessen the suffering of the animals being slaughtered. The World Organisation for Animal Health (also called the OIE), of which Egypt is a member, has agreed on ‘Guidelines’ for animal handling and transport. They just need to be implemented.
Celebrating with kindness
The Eid celebration lasts three or four days (depending on who you ask). It is a joyous occasion, in which men and women dress in their best clothes, and children have time off from school. In the city of Luxor, boys play soccer on the wide sidewalk that overlooks the river Nile. Everyone seems happy, which is good, because life can be very hard for the 90% of Egyptians who are very poor. Government office workers make around 300 Egyptian pounds per month (less than $60 a month).
We wish the people of Egypt a very happy Eid in all the years to come. May it be happy without causing suffering to any animals. Likewise, we wish a Merry Christmas to everyone around the world who celebrates Christmas! May we all learn—sooner, rather than later, to be joyous in a way that is kind—so that kindness and happiness may go together—kindness to turkeys, to sheep, to chickens, to cows and to all animals—that we may all live in peace on the earth together.
Photo by Sharon St. Joan / Glenys Ooges with Jesse
Many thanks to Glenys Ooges for corrections provided.
How you can help
To learn more, please visit the website of Animals Australia
http://www.animalsaustralia.org
To express your support for all those helping animals in Egypt, please join the Egypt Community by clicking on "Join this Community" to the right! Thank you!