Al-Madinah

Last week, Egyptian media carried news of the arrest of a well-known butcher in Al-Faiyum who was selling donkey meat to people. He was also supplying donkey meat to five-star hotels in Cairo claiming that it was goat meat. From Cairo we go to Morocco where police arrested a gang that was selling dog meat and the meat of dead animals. Then here in Saudi Arabia, newspapers recently published news of a supervisory committee seizing hundreds of tons of rotten meat and fish in different areas and provinces in the Kingdom, including Riyadh, Makkah, Jeddah and Al-Khobar. Of course, we are not counting the rotten products that the supervisory committee failed to find.

However, although this meat is rotten, the conscience of those selling, marketing and distributing it is even more rotten. These people are driven by greed for money and I am sure that they are very much aware on the danger that they pose to the health of the general public.

Such rotten meat is easy to spot because it is very cheap compared to normal prices in the market. There are also other food products that are rotten and are the cause of the spread of disease. That is why it is important to increase awareness about how to discover rotten food items. We also need to increase inspections and provide incentives to those who spot violations. We need to encourage people to report such violations and most importantly, impose tough punishment on violators and defame them in newspapers and social media.

I do not know what the appropriate punishment for such violators is in Shariah law, but I believe they should be forced to eat the rotten meat that they have been selling to people for months, and maybe then their consciences will reawaken.