A legal “fighting fund” is planned by the Halal Food Authority (HFA), the certification body, to meet what it said was an increasing number of malicious attacks on the sector.
“We are contributing to a halal defense fund to counter the accusations and false claims about halal,” said Mohammed. “We recently received some accusations and have vigorously gone after them and we will be taking legal actions against the perpetrators.
“The defense fund is being considered and there will be three or four organizations attached to that; those who would be involved in halal certification or halal PR or who have got interested in securing the integrity of halal generally.”
Improve education about halal
The fund would also be used to improve education about halal, said Mohammed. “We are looking for more partners to collaborate in that project,” he added.
Halal-certified food is growing in demand, both within the UK, which boasts around 3M Muslims, representing around 5% of the 65M population, and the 1.7bn around the world.
However, halal is often subjected to criticism, both for animal welfare reasons by those who strongly oppose the use of non-stun slaughter methods and for other reasons – sometimes racist.
Often subjected to criticism
“Any accusations that are false will be taken very seriously; about halal certification funding terrorism, which is, of course, absolutely not the case,” said Mohammed. He cited the example of false accusations along these lines made in Australia, which were pursued and successfully prosecuted in the courts there.
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