BONN, January 10 (IslamOnline) – The biggest two Muslim organizations in Germany threatened to lodge a complaint with the Higher Constitutional Court against a draft bill to stop Muslims of the northern Ryan State from slaughtering animals without anesthetization.

In a joint statement, a copy of which was received by IslamOnline Thursday, January 9, the Higher Council for Muslims and the Islamic Council refused a new draft law to organize the slaughter laws, prepared by the state’s Environment and Consumer Protection Minister Biere Bill Huhin.

Both considered the draft an attempt to curb Muslims’ freedom in practicing their religious traditions and place them in a lower rank than other minorities.

Huhin, in a press conference last week, declared that the suggested draft law made it compulsory for slaughtering to be mechanic and after anesthetization unless an individual offered a document to the effect that it was necessary, from a religious point of view, for oblation to be carried out without anesthetization.

In a clear indication the new draft law is directed only to Muslims, Huhin set next Greater Bairam as a start date for the new law to be effective.

The Jewish community in Germany, however, has been enjoying the right to slaughter without anesthetization since the 1950s.

The German minister claimed she found no verses (in the Muslim’s Glorious Book; Holy Qura’n) setting a certain way of slaughtering animals.

The minister’s announcement sparked a state of discontent and anger among the one million strong Muslim minority in the Ryan State, accounting for 7% of the 18 million population.

A meeting Tuesday, January 7, in the HQs of the state’s Environment Ministry led to a heated confrontation between the minister, on one side, and heads of local and federal Muslim organizations and groups, on the other.

For his part, head of the Higher Council for Muslims in Germany, Dr. Nadeem Ilias urged Huhin to backtrack on the new law, recalling that the Higher Constitutional Court had ruled for any Muslim to slaughter oblations without anesthetization.

He also stressed that Islam provides animals enough protection and safety upon being slaughtered.

Ilias also reminded Huhin that the Higher Constitutional Court had stressed that the German authorities should not interfere with the Islamic Law (Sharia) in any way.

However, Huhin did not offer any indications she may back off or withdraw the new draft law.

For his part, eminent Muslim scholar, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, shedding light on the issue of Islamic way of slaughter, stated two important conditions for the act to be legal and Islamic; “we do not torture the animal before slaughtering it, and we slaughter it as it is still alive and with a good sharp knife”.