Talk:Halal certification in Australia

User:The Drover's Wife said, "rvt questionable and at times outright misleading claims - take it to talk". [1] Below are the three 'bold' deletions. Appreciate a discussion for each. BruceSpider (talk) 06:20, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

1 Organisations

There are close to two dozen Halal certification companies operating in Australia, with the biggest certifiers (classed as not-for-profit enterprises) being the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC), the Halal Certification Authority Australia, the Supreme Islamic Council of Halal Meat in Australia and the Islamic Co-ordinating Council of Victoria. BruceSpider (talk) 06:20, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

As this sentence is not-contested, suggest these words be reinstated. BruceSpider (talk) 03:21, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

2 Finances

Halal certification is mostly used for meats, with halal certification reported to cost meat processors up to $27,000 a month. Halal certification generates up to $1 million a year revenue for the AFIC. Mohamed El-Mouelhy, chairman of Halal Certification Authority Australia, has said that halal certification has, "made me a millionaire". BruceSpider (talk) 06:20, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Today Tonight is not a reliable source for anything, and emphasising the "cost" of certification is obviously biased given that this is necessary to actually sell Halal products, which is an important (and presumably profitable given the number of firms who voluntarily partake) export industry for Australia. Nick-D (talk) 07:15, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

With due respect to POV on Today Tonight, the crux of that sentence is El-Mouelhy's own (non-contestable) words. Dollar figures provide an insight into industry magnitudes and significance. In an informed Australian community, and in the encyclopaedias it uses, cost structures should be transparent. BruceSpider (talk) 09:28, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

3 RSPCA

Australian law requires that animals must be stunned so that they are insensitive to pain prior to slaughter. While the vast majority of halal slaughter involves stunning prior to the throat being cut, there are exemptions for 'religious slaughter' for all kosher and some halal products, to enable slaughtering without prior stunning. The RSPCA say, "the slaughter of a fully conscious animal is inhumane and completely unnecessary". The RSPCA asks people to take strong action against this practice. BruceSpider (talk) 06:20, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Aside from the emphasis being on what's apparently a small minority of halal slaughter, much of that is an obvious copyright violation. Nick-D (talk) 09:12, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The RSPCA is obviously very concerned even for a, "small minority" of animals. If you read from ICV [Cite 6] non-stunning is clearly specified for all halal-slaughtered animals, not for some "small minority". Non-stunning halal slaughter is currently an issue in Europe.[2] Any copyright violation can easily be fixed, but I particularly wanted to use their own words. BruceSpider (talk) 09:52, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Based on the above discussion suggest the following set of words be reinstated. BruceSpider (talk) 18:07, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Australian halal certifiers specify that slaughtering of animals (known as Dhabihah) is to be undertaken by the cutting of the throat, without pre-slaughter stunning.

Research undertaken by Meat & Livestock Australia on animal pain and distress concluded, "technologies available to alleviate such suffering overwhelmingly supports the use of pre-slaughter stunning". In Australia, animals are usually stunned so they are insensitive to pain, prior to the slaughter, however there are exemptions under Australian law for religious slaughter. The RSPCA says while most halal slaughter does involve pre-slaughter stunning, "the slaughter of a fully conscious animal is inhumane and completely unnecessary" and is strongly lobbying for action against this practice for all domestic and export animals. BruceSpider (talk) 18:07, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

That's much worse, and appears to have been written to deliberately mislead readers (the RSPCA says that stunning almost always occurs in Halal abattoirs in Australia, yet the impression readers would get from the above is that it's rare - with the references for the first paragraph not even supporting this assertion). As you appear to have a personal bias on the topic of Halal food, I'd suggest that you not attempt to write about the subject here. Nick-D (talk) 21:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

In relation to your assertion that the first paragraph does not support no pre-stunning, please carefully read the The Islamic Council of Victoria, quoting AFIC's "strict rule" for Islamic Slaughter[8], and the Islamic Coordinating Council of Victoria, Method of Slaughter[9] and Dhabihah Sections 1 & 2. All of those Islamic halal slaughter specifications exclude (or dismiss or reject) pre-stunning. I maintain that the first paragraph is correct. (If stunning almost always occurs in Australian halal abattoirs - that must be contrary to Australian halal certification requirements - a separate controversy). The number of animals, or slaughter houses, involved is immaterial. The RSPCA says while most halal slaughter does involve pre-slaughter stunning, it is concerned saying, "the slaughter of a fully conscious animal is inhumane and completely unnecessary".[11] 02:38, 3 February 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BruceSpider (talk • contribs)

The RSPCA website states that "the vast majority of halal slaughter involves stunning prior to the throat cut". Your argument appears to be a combination of WP:SYNTH and your personal views. Nick-D (talk) 03:12, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

In response, the above could be abbreviated to the following sentence:BruceSpider (talk) 05:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The RSPCA says while the vast majority of halal slaughter does involve pre-slaughter stunning, "the slaughter of a fully conscious animal is inhumane and completely unnecessary" and is strongly lobbying for action against this practice for all domestic and export animals.[11] BruceSpider (talk) 05:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Certification fees

I've just removed an uncited statement that "while Australian certification fees are generally not publicly available", and a figure which seems to have been selected on the basis of it seeming high given that in previous incarnations it was being used to support the views of anti-Halal activists. This was being referenced to an article on a law firm's website discussing the particular legal case from the perspective of how intellectual property law applied to the use of the certifier's logo, and so doesn't support the kind of implications which were being drawn here. Googling Halal certification fees provides various figures with [3] and [4] being examples, so claiming that the fees are secret is complete rubbish. As to the size of the fees, the Australian Food and Grocery Council says that they're negligible in terms of the total manufacturing cost base and highly unlikely to influence wholesale pricing. Nick-D (talk) 07:52, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

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Caps and italics

The article has a mixture of "halal", "halal", and "Halal" (same for haram). On WP we don't generally capitalize Special Words; the correct way of marking a foreign terms is with italics. I surely plan on lowercasing, but am concerned that italicizing (and potentially also language-tagging) each instance might be distracting to the reader. Thoughts? Pelagic (talk) 09:54, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

You could argue that the word "halal" has become naturalised or at least common in Australia. But then why mark it with a capital? Also, I'm mindful that we're writing for an international audience. (I don't want another encounter like when we discussed treating Maori words specially because there's a "New Zealand English" tag on the top of the article.) Italicing kosher was a harder call, but it feels inconsistent to leave it unmarked in this context.

I have now italicised the term in running text, but not in references, direct quotes, or proper names of organisations. See how you like the look. I have de-capped even in direct quotes: this is allowed and even encouraged in MOS.

Pelagic (talk) 11:33, 18 May 2019 (UTC)