The Perantau

Muslims in Victoria scramble for answers in light of controversial non-halal chicken report

Victoria’s Muslim population has been left scrambling for answers in light of a controversial and disputed report that has left many confused.

In a report published on May 1st, the Australia National Imams Council (ANIC) stated that the widely-used Controlled Atmospheric Stunning (CAS) method of chicken slaughtering in Australia is considered unsuitable for halal consumption. The report concluded that the chickens were already deceased prior to the slaughtering process.

Other Islamic groups in the country, however, have called for further investigation since ANIC inspected only one abattoir for the report. They question the statement’s legitimacy when applied to the entirety of Australia more broadly.

“We find the conclusions drawn in the fatwa [Islamic ruling] to be problematic on many levels,” the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) said in a statement.

“ANIC has failed the community in this matter with the potential to cause significant harm to many Muslim businesses and impose unnecessary hardship upon the community,” it continued.

Imam Muhamadu Nawaz, who sits on the ANIC-supervised Board of Imams Victoria, is now responding to the numerous calls he has received from distraught Muslims.

“There seems to be two fatwas now, one saying that it is halal, and the other haram. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of personal preference, but I’ve had a lot of calls since,” Imam Nawaz said.

Over 353,000 enquiries have been made in the last 3 months regarding the halal certification status of suppliers, according to data sourced from Halal Food Australia, an independent distributor of halal products and online directory of Australian halal restaurants.

Nearly 40 per cent of those came in the last month, specifically related to chicken meat.

Mohammed Iskander, store manager at Halal Food Australia, said that as different Islamic bodies compete to be the loudest in the room, the conflict stems from the decentralized nature of the domestic halal certification process.

“There’s a halal board, which includes ANIC and AFIC, that acts as an advisory panel to the Department of Agriculture, but it stops there,” he said.

“I know they [the federal government] tried to centralise it four or five years ago, but it was too costly of an exercise, so the government wasn’t going to front up the money for it,” he continued.

The lack of publicly available information on halal products in Victoria has also made it harder for Muslims that are not a part of close-knit communities, particularly international students who have become heavily affected by the issue.

“I think this new blanket ruling places a significant burden on people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and it will likely cause them to turn a blind eye to matters like this,” said Rayyan Rizwan, president of the Monash Caulfield Islamic Society.

“Personally, I place the responsibility of due diligence with the vendors who assure me that their chicken is halal,” he added.

According to the latest Census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Muslim population in Victoria has grown by nearly 40 percent since 2016, reaching over 273,000 individuals.

The Islamic Coordinating Council of Victoria, Australia’s largest internationally accredited halal certification agency, has declined to comment.

---

Originally submitted as coursework for the Master of Global Media Communications, University of Melbourne