UK local gov’t accused over halal food

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Muslim mosques officials have accused a British local government of providing food to Muslim children that does not meet halal food standards.The Lancashire Council of Mosques (LCM) says local government officials have been distributing food banned in Islam as halal food among Muslim pupils and has called for a ban on all such food.“Suppliers of ‘halal’ products are not accredited by any halal certifying organization that is in line with the halal criteria adopted by the LCM,” the group wrote in a letter to Muslim parents.LCM has also urged the parents not to allow their children to eat meat or chicken at Lancashire County Council (LCC) schools as they do not have halal food labels.The Muslim body has also criticized local authorities for their unjust behavior toward the Muslim community and Muslim students.This comes as Lancashire council leader Geoff Driver has rejected the LCM concerns saying the supplied food meets standards applied to all halal food in schools across Britain.This is not the first time Britain is gripped in controversy over halal food.A Pakistani paper reported on November 26 that some 1,500 Muslim students in an unidentified school in Birmingham have been given food that does not fall under halal description.Meanwhile, British Muslim scholars accused leading fast food chain KFC for mislabeling its chicken as halal earlier this year.KFC was accused of failure to meet the Food Standard Agency’s (FSA) guidelines on halal food while the latter was accused of failing to enforce its standards at the expense of Muslims.Animal rights campaigners have been campaigning in Britain to ban halal slaughter methods that Islam considers necessary to make meat fit for consumption. /129