Consumer Rights fight against fake-halal goods in Kazakhstan

Consumer Rights Protection Agency continues battling with “fake”-halal goods, Tengrinews reports. The Agency also questions whether the work of the Halal Industry Association of Kazakhstan has legal basis.

According to the Agency, there are no regulations or legal acts governing issuance of halal standards compliance certificates in Kazakhstan. But the Halal Industry Association evaluates quality, determines eligibility of halal goods and issues certificates of compliance. 

“According to the Agency of Religious Affairs, Association of Halal Industry of Kazakhstan is not a religious association, while the issue of distinguishing goods as halal is a religious issue. In addition, the Agency of Religious Affairs considers the certification of halal goods to be in conflict with the present legislation,” the press office of the Consumer Rights Protection Agency said.

The present legislation does not consider halal goods in terms of quality and safety. There are only standards applicable to halal sausage, but it is solely voluntary and do not require certification. This means that halal goods are not on the list of certifiable goods and services in Kazakhstan.

The Agency did not just criticize the halal certification from legal point, but also conducted a laboratory testing of sausages to identify the contents of the products declared to be halal. The results were revealing. Sausages Musulmanskie, beef halal, doktorskaya, halal beef smocked sausages, horse sausages and many others marked halal did contain pork.

This is considered a violation of the 107 clause of the Customs Union Technical Regulation on safety of meat and meat products because the information on the packaging of the fake-halal goods is misleading.

All in all, Halal industry is a subject of much controversy. Kazakhstan does not have a legislation governing proper labeling of halal goods, so sometimes the labeling gets rather absurd, chairman of the Consumer Rights Protection Agency Bolatbek Kuandykov said.

By Gyuzel Kamalova