Animal stunning slowly being accepted by Turkey's halal butchers, say activists

As Eid al-Adha begins, a campaign for painless killing is starting to win favour with slaughterhouses and religious leaders

As Turkey gears up for Eid al-Adha, or Qurban Bayram, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, animal rights campaigners are celebrating progress in their efforts to convince religious leaders, butchers and slaughterhouses of the merits of stunning animals before ritual slaughter.

Livestock warehouses across the country were busy on Thursday before the festival began at sunset, with families inspecting sheep and cows to slaughter in honour of Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael.