What Are Halal and Kosher Meat, and Why Is Unstunned Slaughter Banned in Parts of Belgium?

Halal and kosher meat come from animals slaughtered by a single cut to the throat under Islamic or Jewish law. Belgium’s Flanders and Wallonia regions banned slaughter without prior stunning in 2019, ending the religious exemption. European courts upheld the bans. The Brussels region has not adopted one, so unstunned slaughter remains legal there.

Reviewed by Hafiz Maqsood Ahmed.

The bans matter beyond Belgium. They tested how far European governments can restrict religious slaughter in the name of animal welfare, and the answer from both the European Union’s top court and the European Court of Human Rights was: further than many Muslim and Jewish groups had expected.

For Belgium’s Muslim and Jewish consumers, the practical effect is that meat from animals slaughtered without stunning must now come from Brussels or from abroad, while some certifiers accept reversible stunning and others do not.

What makes meat halal or kosher

Both traditions require a living, healthy animal, a trained slaughterer and a swift cut with a sharp knife that severs the major blood vessels, followed by thorough bleeding. Halal slaughter, called dhabh or zabiha, also requires the slaughterer to be a Muslim or one of the People of the Book and to pronounce the name of God. Kosher slaughter, shechita, is performed by a trained Jewish slaughterer, or shochet, and kosher law adds rules on inspection and on which parts of the animal may be eaten.

The Islamic emphasis on minimizing suffering comes from the Prophet’s instruction to slaughter well. Hadith numbers below follow the Sunnah.com numbering, so anyone can look up each hadith there; printed editions sometimes number them differently. Shaddad ibn Aws narrated that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَتَبَ الإِحْسَانَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَىْءٍ فَإِذَا قَتَلْتُمْ فَأَحْسِنُوا الْقِتْلَةَ وَإِذَا ذَبَحْتُمْ فَأَحْسِنُوا الذَّبْحَ وَلْيُحِدَّ أَحَدُكُمْ شَفْرَتَهُ فَلْيُرِحْ ذَبِيحَتَهُ

“Two are the things which I remember Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) having said: Verily Allah has enjoined goodness to everything; so when you kill, kill in a good way and when you slaughter, slaughter in a good way. So every one of you should sharpen his knife, and let the slaughtered animal die comfortably.”

Reference: Sahih Muslim, The Book of Hunting, Slaughter, and what may be Eaten (Kitab as-Sayd wa adh-Dhaba’ih), Hadith 1955a (in-book reference: Book 34, Hadith 84).

Our guide to what halal meat is covers the full conditions, and a separate explainer sets out the differences between halal and kosher.

Why stunning is the dividing line

European Union law requires animals to be stunned before slaughter, but Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 allows member states to exempt slaughter prescribed by religious rites. Belgium’s regions, which have controlled animal welfare since a 2014 state reform, chose to remove that exemption.

Religious authorities are divided on stunning. Many Jewish authorities and a large share of Muslim scholars reject any stunning because the animal must be alive and uninjured at the moment of slaughter. Other Muslim bodies accept reversible stunning, which leaves the animal unconscious but alive, provided the animal would recover if not slaughtered. Malaysia’s halal standard and Indonesia’s Ulema Council have accepted stunning under such conditions, while certifiers such as Britain’s Halal Monitoring Committee certify only unstunned meat. The debate is covered in depth in our report on the halal stunning debate.

How the Belgian bans happened

Flanders and Wallonia adopted separate decrees requiring stunning for all slaughter, including religious slaughter. Both allow reversible electrical stunning, which supporters presented as a compromise for religious communities. Muslim and Jewish organizations challenged the decrees in court and lost at every level.

In its judgment in Executief van de Moslims van België and Others v. Belgium, the European Court of Human Rights found no violation of the right to freedom of religion or of the ban on discrimination. The court said the authorities had stayed within their margin of appreciation, partly because reversible stunning remained available. It was the first time the court linked animal welfare to the protection of public morals. Our news report covered the Strasbourg court’s decision when it was issued.

Where unstunned slaughter is still allowed

The Brussels-Capital Region remains the exception. Its parliament rejected a ban in June 2022 through an alternative majority of the Socialist, Workers’ Party, Ecolo and Les Engagés groups. The animal-rights group GAIA said in a Sept. 15, 2026, statement that the issue had reached a “political standstill” and urged lawmakers to revive it.

That leaves Brussels slaughterhouses as Belgium’s only legal domestic source of meat from animals slaughtered without stunning. Muslim families in Flanders and Wallonia who want such meat, including for the sacrifice at Eid al-Adha, rely on Brussels or on imports from other EU countries that keep the religious exemption.

What it means for the halal meat market

The Belgian rulings give other European governments legal cover to follow. Denmark, Sweden, Slovenia and Switzerland already prohibit slaughter without stunning, and the 2020 EU ruling and 2024 Strasbourg judgment make similar bans harder to challenge in court.

For producers and certifiers, the split creates two supply chains: stunned halal meat accepted by bodies that allow reversible stunning, and unstunned meat for consumers whose scholars or certifiers require it. Clear labeling matters to both groups, and buyers should check which standard a certificate follows.

Frequently asked questions

Is halal meat banned in Belgium?

No. Halal and kosher meat can be sold everywhere in Belgium. Flanders and Wallonia ban only slaughter without prior stunning on their territory; meat slaughtered without stunning in Brussels or abroad can still be sold.

Is stunned meat halal?

Scholars and certifiers disagree. Some accept reversible stunning that does not kill the animal before the cut; others accept only unstunned slaughter. Consumers usually follow the ruling of their own scholars or certifier.