Let reality not spoil a good headline. It is the premise that has just been adopted by the mayor of Ripoll, Sílvia Orriols, of the far-right pro-independence party Aliança Catalana. The batllessa published a tweet yesterday, without it coming to an end, which says: “I have submitted an instance to the regional council requesting, among other things, that it be guaranteed that all the meat served in the school canteens in Ripoll comes from animals slaughtered with prior sedation or stunning. Out of halal menus in public schools!”.
What Orriols thinks about immigration and what she would do with the residents of Ripoll who have arrived from outside and do not have a regularized situation is already known. But what is surprising about the tweet, in a new chapter of the mayoress with immigrants, is that none of the public schools in Ripoll serve halal menus in the canteens. “He’s asking for something that doesn’t exist to be removed”, say the Ripollès County Council, in charge of managing school canteens. So, the request presented by Orriols to the local authority will have little success. The headline, of course, is already there.
From the same county council, it is also revealed that for now there is no intention to include halal food in the menus of schools in Ripoll or the county, which makes the message on Sílvia’s social networks even more surprising orioles
La Vanguardia tried yesterday without success to talk to the mayoress, to find out the reason for the tweet with a request and statement that does not correspond to reality. Find out what your concern about this matter is. The answer from the Consistory? “The mayoress will not do any reflection on this issue”. If we return to the popular proverb, it seems that Orriols throws another stone and hides his hand.
If the mayoress of Ripoll is so concerned that menus for Muslims are not served in the town’s public schools (which, it must be repeated, is not currently happening), “she could have taken another path” instead of publish a tweet that seems to only generate controversy, they explain from the county council. In fact, the City Council that he leads (Aliança Catalana rules with only 6 of 17 councilors) “could have requested, before December 31 of last year, the municipal management of school canteens; but he didn’t ask for it”, say the same sources.
Orriols’ “concern” for animal welfare and, in turn, for halal school menus goes back a long way. Years ago he stood at the gates of a slaughterhouse in Ripoll to demand a ban on the sacrifice of animals for the Muslim rite (they cut their throats) and denounced the harassment of several dozen immigrants who criticized his protest.
When we talk about halal, we refer to a method of animal sacrifice that consists of a deep incision in the neck with a sharp knife, which cuts the jugular vein and the carotid artery. The intention is for the animal to bleed without touching the spine.
