Today is the Sacrifice Feast and we are in Istanbul. It is one of the oldest Islamic holidays. It commemorates the story about Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) who thought to show obedience to God he should sacrifice his own son. Before he could carry out the sacrifice, Allah (God) insisted he not kill his own son, and rather sacrifice something else, like a ram. Similar stories are in the Jewish and Christian religion. Sacrifice is one thing, but causing extreme fear and pain to the animal during the sacrifice is totally unnecessary, cruel and disrespectful. Today this bull was just one of thousands of other bovine and sheep being restrained, chained, hoisted by one leg fully off the floor and having their necks cut (sawed) by small (and sometimes even too blunt) knives all while fully alive, alert, sentient and in total fear.
Asalet and his cousin, from Eyes on Animals, accompanied by a Turkish butcher, cannot bear just looking at this suffering every year and cannot bear waiting for years for this tradition to stop. So they got into action so that they could spare some of the animals a lot of this suffering today. They hung a banner about animal welfare and the option of rendering animals at least unconsious before putting them through all this torture and are offering the service to stun animals with the EonA captive bolt stunners. They are at one of the Sacrifice Feast slaughter locations in Istanbul. Bravo to these fantastic Turkish men for getting their hands dirty, putting their beliefs into action, and making such a serious difference to the animals. Today they stunned bovine and sheep so that the stress and pain during the restraint and cut was eliminated.
