Animal rights activists clash with police in east London. Photo: YouTube screenshot.

Animal rights activists scrawled antisemitic graffiti on the walls of a kosher slaughterhouse in east London during a protest last week, the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported.

According to the report, the Kedassia abattoir in Hackney Wick was defaced with “a Star of David, references to Nazism and the words ‘Kosher Holocaust.’”

The activists were from a group called East London Chicken Save.

Speaking on behalf of the abattoir owners, Shimon Cohen said, “If you want to protest against eating animals, that is your right…But [the activists] have proved they are nothing more than a bunch of antisemitic vandals who will end up arrested.”

“There are 760 million chickens a year slaughtered in this country, and the Jewish community is responsible for just under one million,” he went on to say. “I wonder why there is such a focus on us.”

In a statement published on its Facebook page on Sunday, Save Movement UK & Europe wrote, “As with all 24 of our groups across the UK, East London Chicken Save attracts campaigners and activists from diverse backgrounds. We must accept however that demonstrators will respond to negative actions by slaughterhouse staff and any attempts to encroach on our fundamental right to protest and expose the awful truth of animal food supply to the public…The Save Movement has a strict Code of Conduct which rejects any form of violence, intimidation and racism, including antisemitism. Save Movement UK & Europe holds vigils at all slaughterhouses, be they kosher, halal or otherwise, in our efforts to document the final moments of all animals transported to abattoirs.”