Press Release
Halal is primarily a religious issue
AND a Matter for Muslim religious authorities
The signatories of this press release, met April 20, 2015 at the Grand Mosque of Lyon and agreed that :
· Any Muslim religious questions or definitions, or religious decisions are the exclusive prerogative of religious authorities of the Muslim community.
· Any accreditation, auditing, certification, and the control of all production that requires halal authentication are the exclusive responsibility of the competent Muslim operatings under the control of the accredited and recognized Muslim authorities and religious institutions.
· No standards for halal procedures used by the Muslim community may be owned by a non-Muslim organization.
Therefore, the signatories of this release forcefully denounce the current standardization project “Halal Foods” of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) which will be discussed shortly in Cordoba (from 28 to 30 April 2015).
This project and any resulting proposals are inconsistent with the rules and prescription of the Islamic religion and, therefore, the French Muslim community will not accept any such document.
Furthermore, a working committee of CEN, hosted by the French Standards Association (AFNOR), the three mosques (Paris, Lyon, and Evry) and French Muslim Worship Council (CFCM) were only asked to participate as “technical support”. This “secondary” role conferred on them shows the willingness of these standards bodies to deprive Muslims of their right to control an issue that is essentially religious.
For this purpose : the signatories below require the transfer of the working committee “Foodstuffs Halal” to the authority of the heads of Muslim religious institutions alone that are competent to deal with these problems that are essentially religious.
If this requirement is not completed by September 30, 2015, the signatories will leave the commission.
At this time they are suspending their participation in the work of this commission and no longer will participate in future meetings.
Signed by : CFCM (French Muslim Council of Worship), Grand Mosque of Lyon, Great Mosque of Evry, European Halal Services, ASIDCOM (Muslim Consumers), UFCM(Muslim Consumers), SIRAT(wholesaler), AVS (à votre service).
ARTICLE TWO
The Islamization of Food: A Demonstration of Fractures in French Society?
ASIDCOM has learned about the contents of the first CEN (Committee of European Normalization) meeting in Istanbul in September 2013 as part of the work on a future European halal standard. ASIDCOM has asked to be a member of the AFNOR (Association Française de Normalisation, the French national organization for standardization) “Halal Foods” Committee.
ARTICLE THREE
JANUARY 2014: AFNOR STANDARDIZATION PRESS RELEASE REGARDING REPRESENTING FRENCH STAKEHOLDERS IN THE CREATION OF AN EU HALAL STANDARD:
From January 2014 – AFNOR Group, a member of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), has led an open-access standardization committee on Halal food. The goal is to represent the voice of French stakeholders in the framework of a draft European standard for voluntary application.
