Brussels, 15 September 2026 – Today, GAIA is unveiling giant billboards in the heart of the capital, at Place de la Monnaie and Place De Brouckère. They feature a sheep shedding a tear of blood and call on citizens to contact Brussels MPs. The aim: to put the ban on slaughter without stunning back on the political agenda. Members of the public are also invited to contact Brussels MPs directly by email via GAIA’s website.
With this action, GAIA is particularly targeting MPs from the MR and Les Engagés. On 22 April, during the latest attempt to put the proposals for a Brussels Animal Welfare Code on the committee’s agenda, they refused to allow them to be considered.
“The texts are there. The science is clear. The courts have ruled. Yet some MPs still refuse to allow Parliament to debate them. How much longer must we wait? We are calling on them to break the political deadlock and stop making animals pay the price for this blockade,” says Ann De Greef, General Director of GAIA.
According to an Ipsos survey conducted for GAIA in February 2024, 80% of Brussels residents consider a ban on slaughter without stunning, including ritual slaughter, an important measure for improving animal welfare. In addition, 93% care about animal welfare, while nearly 7 in 10 believe that animals suffer greatly when slaughtered without stunning. The issue also influences voting choices: one in three Brussels residents (32%) say they would vote for another party if the party they support refused to ban the practice.
The scientific consensus is clear: slaughter without stunning causes significant and avoidable suffering. The Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE), representing more than 300,000 veterinarians, and the Belgian Union Professionnelle Vétérinaire consider slaughter without prior stunning unacceptable.
The question of religious freedom has also been settled by the courts. The Court of Justice of the European Union and the Belgian Constitutional Court have confirmed that requiring animals to be stunned before slaughter is compatible with freedom of religion. The European Court of Human Rights has also ruled that the bans in Wallonia and Flanders constitute neither a violation of freedom of religion nor discrimination.
Countries with large Muslim-majority populations, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, have long accepted the import and consumption of meat from animals that were stunned before slaughter. In New Zealand, one of the world’s largest exporters of halal meat, all animals slaughtered according to halal requirements are stunned beforehand.
Images may be used freely, provided they are credited © GAIA