A YouTube video clip showing pigs being culled in Egypt as part of swine flu measures has caused outrage at the apparent barbarity of the method of slaughtering the animals.
The clip posted by independent newspaper Al-Masri Al-Yom includes gory images of pigs being beaten with iron bars, piglets being stabbed and animals being kicked alive into bulldozer buckets.
Since going on line on YouTube this weekend, the clip has sparked horrified reactions from Muslims and from the Christian Copt community, who are the main rearers of pigs in Egypt as Muslims do not eat pork.
Although no case of A(H1N1) swine flu has yet been detected on its territory, Egypt is the only country in the world to have decided to kill all its pigs, estimated to have numbered about 250,000 before the cull began.
The WHO has said the drastic measure is not scientifically justified.
In the YouTube video, Mohamed el-Mugharbil, deputy mayor of Kashkus near Cairo, describes how chemicals are also poured on animals caged in lorries, leading to a slow death.
Ali Shaaban, head of the site where the corpses are buried, confirms the method.
“The pigs are covered with chemical products and left for 30 or 40 minutes until they are dead, then we throw them in the ditch,” he said.
The agriculture ministry denied the animals are killed with chemicals.
“These are disinfectants. The throats of the animals are slit before they are buried,” said Saber Abdel Aziz Galal, head of the department of infectious diseases.
Other pictures showed pigs that have been disemboweled but whose throats have not been slit.
Sheikh Salim Mohammed Salim, head of the fatwas committee at the University of Al-Azhar, said that killing an animal that way was “strictly forbidden by Islam ... whatever it is, including a pig.”
The government-controlled Al-Ahram weekly alleged there was chaos at Bassatin, the large abattoir in Cairo where the pigs are supposed to be slaughtered humanely at a rate of 1,200 per day.
“Only the males are killed in accordance with the rules,” said journalist Heba Nasreddin, while “the piglets and sows are hit with an iron bar and left to bleed to death.”
An online petition calling on the Egyptian government to end the “senseless slaughter” has been launched on www.care2.com.
The slaughter caused controversy from its start on May 3, when riot police clashed with stone-throwing pig farmers trying to prevent their animals from being taken away.
Between 300 and 400 residents of the hilly Moqattam slum district of Cairo, where mostly Coptic scrap merchants raise pigs, hurled stones and bottles at police, saying the cull would deny them a key source of income.
The authorities have said it will take six months to complete the slaughter and announced plans to import three machines to boost culling capacity to 3,000 animals a day.
Arab intellectuals, both Christian and Muslim, have accused Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s government of having conspired with the Islamist opposition the Muslim Brotherhood, which opposes rearing pigs “on Islamic land.”
Trinidad and Tobago declared a new state of emergency on Friday after authorities accused a criminal network operating in prisons across the country of plotting to kill key government officials and attack public institutions. It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the twin-island republic in a matter of months. In December last year, authorities took similar action, citing concerns about gang violence. That state of emergency lasted until mid-April. Police said that smuggled cellphones enabled those involved in the plot to exchange encrypted messages. Months of intelligence gathering led investigators to believe the targets included senior police officers,
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
RSS