NAMES IN THE NEWS : Bardot Slams Ritual Slaughters
mer film goddess turned animal rights champion Brigitte Bardot has assailed the Islamic world’s ritual slaughter of animals as revolting and cruel.
“We are no longer in the Middle Ages and now have every means to curtail the pains and terrifying anguish of animals about to be slaughtered,” she said in an interview published Tuesday in the extreme right weekly magazine Present.
“It is revolting . . . and unacceptable that in the name of religion, man should submit animals to such cruel and barbarous sufferings,” she said.
Bardot, 55, who has devoted herself to defending animal rights since her last film in 1973, made her statement after seeing a film of the mass slaughter last month of 3,000 sheep by North African immigrants in the Mediterranean port of Marseille.
She was said by friends to be especially revolted since she has long campaigned for laws to be passed forcing ritual slaughterers to stun beasts before killing them.
The slaughter of animals during religious feasts is an ages-old tradition in some religions. The animals’ throats are slit quickly with a single stroke under special rules to minimize pain.
Bardot’s office said she felt equally strongly about Jewish ritual slaughter and Catholic churchmen who blessed foxhunts in France and bullfights in Spain.
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