Category: Animals

Protest Letter Against Horse Torture to the Ministry of Agriculture of Una-Sana Canton and the Government of Una-Sana Canton

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Despite the repeated protests that I sent and talked about before my departure to France, the so-called “štraparijada” events are still organized by animal torturers and are still approved by the Ministry of Agriculture of Una-Sana Canton. Barbarism has no limits in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following is the text of the protest letter I sent a few days ago, before another performance of horse torture.

“To Whom It May Concern,

As a former World Animal Day Ambassador for BiH and a BiH citizen abroad, I am shocked by the reckless behavior of your Ministry of Agriculture and nonchalant attitude towards the violation of the Law on the Protection and Welfare of Animals of BiH, which not only characterizes the state of awareness in Una-Sana Canton and beyond, but also counts to the continuation of barbarism, which has been approved and encouraged in Izačić for years.

Year after year, the atavistic parade of animal torture, which the torturers and all of you, their supporters, affectionately call the “štraparijadas”, as the pride and pinnacle of animal torture, is the forcing of horses to drag heavy logs and other barbarities aimed at satisfying the base urges of those same. torturers and the torture of a hungry audience – which is a direct mockery and violation of Article 4 and other relevant articles of the Law on the Protection and Welfare of Animals of BiH (“Official Gazette of BiH”, No. 25/09). In this article, point ii) there is a special prohibition of forcing animals to behave in ways that cause them pain, suffering, injury and fear. Are you under the impression that hauling heavy logs is anything other than the action that is expressly prohibited? If so, it would be best if you harness yourself and start pulling the logs yourself, so that we can see who is the “strongest”. Similar competitions exist all over the world, eg the Highland Games in Scotland. They are highly rated on tourist lists and represent the return of tradition, but with participants who clearly and loudly give their consent to it. Unfortunately, when not games are organized, but torture parades are organized, such as carnivals, there are no participants, only victims. And when the victims are those whose voice, pain and suffering are cheerfully ignored, the aforementioned Law serves the Ministry of Agriculture and the entire Government only when the building’s toilet runs out of toilet paper.

I know that you will ignore this email as well as numerous previous ones, but you will not be able to wash your hands of the suffering caused to innocent living beings.

Speciesism as a type of discrimination is the basis for all other discriminations and evils in society and as long as there are institutions in that same society that issue approvals for organizing public torture, that society will never know a kind future. Instead of stepping forward from the barbaric shackles of the Balkans, Una-Sana Canton and Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole are plunging to medieval levels of consciousness, and you, as the culprits of that plunging, can only be ashamed.

May every tear, every whip and cry of innocent horses reach you as they are surrounded by sadistic psychopaths, whose torture is approved and sealed by your Ministry. Shame on you.”

Tomorrow, on Labor Day, many citizens of BiH and other countries will gather again and “celebrate” this day by devouring the corpses of babies impaled on stakes. Will we as a society ever end the suffering inflicted on other living, conscious beings and stop all kinds of barbarism?

/Izvor fotografije: Radio Sarajevo/

VEGAN VIGNETTES: COMPASSION IS SEXY! LINGERIE ACTION VISUALS & REPORT

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„You own your body – let other animals own theirs“ was one of the slogans of our comprehensive animal rights project which culminated in a lingerie action this past Saturday on the main street of Lyon.

Why lingerie? Well, we use our bodies simply as a free tool at our disposal to attract attention to the plight of animals and the necessity of their liberation. And what better way to attract attention that the sight of hot bodies in the middle of winter? Along with my beloved friends and fellow activists, it was a challenge, but also a privilege to be able to do activism in this unique way for the innocent, sentient beings that humanity is putting through hell every day.

We designed this action to be very open and inviting, enticing the public with smiles, good music and a positive atmosphere. The main message was: „Exploiting animals is not only horrible, but it‘s also unnecessary,“ and we framed our whole way of activism towards those millenials and Gen Z-ers who are very open to the idea of going vegan, but who might lack certain information and thus feel they must continue the old ways, either because of protein/nutrition or some other reason. We showed that it‘s easy to switch to a suffering-free lifestyle – and that it‘s even desireable! You can be and you will be strong, sexy and compassionate when you become vegan! And even the older folks were receptive of the message.

An ocean of gratitude to Marie and Natasha, who were queen bees with the organization, providing the necessary pillars of ideas and realization with such motivation and strength that organizing this project was truly a breeze! This action would not have been possible without them.

Another ocean of gratitude to Theo and Jeff, who joined us in underwear to show that men can equally be strong and sexy without munching on corpses! Fun fact: Jeff was one of the first people I approached when I had this idea past June during Vegan Place, and he is always so chill and up for great action that it is a pleasure to have such support. And Theo not only did an amazing shoot but also made sure his presentation at the lingerie action was very festive! This was truly a fantastic group of people who decided to use their voice and their bodies in an unexpected yet very attention-grabbing way for the animals. Amazing work and also – this way we managed to silence those speciesist complaints that the action was „objectifying women“. True feminism is advocating for all females of all species!

Our outreachers were Olympe and Sophia who also braved the cold to talk to people and raise their awareness on what happens behind the closed doors of slaughterhouses, and they distributed plenty of brochures and knowledge. Sophia was also part of the calendar and Olympe is an activist from Montpellier who came especially to support this action. Thank you both!

Speaking of a calendar: You know those sexy calendars that American firefighters do to collect money for good causes? Well, we did the same! Our sexy calendar showcases us, vegan animal rights activists from Lyon, all to collect money for „Le Cercle de P.A.N“ association for the protection of animals and nature. The association does incredible work in saving abandoned animals, their medical treatment and adoption, and raises awareness on animal exploitation and how to achieve an environmentally-friendly way of living. At the action, our lovely activist Valerie really rescued us by taking care of the calendar sale. A big thank you!

Fantastic photos and videos (to come) are all taken by Nathalie, who always supports whatever far-out idea we might have. So great to do activism with you. Merci, Nath! =)

Last but not least, Rose-Marie was also there to support us, just like she does on many other actions. Thank you very much!

Our lingerie action was very successful: we collected about 400 EUR for the animals! You can see the amount of 370 EUR at the big cheque in one of the photos, but actually, we had people approach us even after the action ended, so the final amount was bigger. Awesome!

Oftentimes, when we advocate for the animals on the street, we can only hope that we have awakened a sense of moral obligation and urgency in stopping one‘s support for the animal torture industries (meat, dairy and eggs, but also circuses, laboratories that experiment on animals, seaquariums, etc) in those we talk to. This time, we also did something that resulted in a concrete help for animals, and that is something that is incredible. Therefore, a big gratitude to all the activists who participated in this project. I‘m happy and proud to be an activist alongside you all.

Cherry on top of a vegan cake: we got some great media coverage! Check it out here (in French):

https://www.neozone.org/societe/la-compassion-est-sexygo-vegan-une-manifestation-en-lingerie-a-lyon-pour-soutenir-la-cause-animale

I cannot wait to see what positive things we do next. Let‘s veganize the planet!

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VEGAN VIGNETTES: LINGUISTIC SPECIESISM

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Last month, during a weekend stay in Paris, I stumbled upon this particular image in the subway, prominently displayed on an ad promoting the book. The title, of course, immediately drew my attention. „Holocaust in the Congo“ provokes a strong sentiment about the topic, and coupled with a distressful photo, it immediately tells a story of a horrific tragedy. Now, I have no reason to doubt that a holocaust has indeed happened in this place, and it‘s clear why the author chose the word „holocaust“ for the title: to somehow give a name to the immensity of suffering of the people in which France was probably an accomplice (pointed at by the subtitle „La France complice?“). What I do want to point to is linguistic hypocrisy as another example of overall speciesism, which is present in all areas of our everyday life, including language and communication.
The question is: why is it alright to use the word „holocaust“ in this particular example (and others that describe human suffering) but not when we want to describe the unbelievable suffering of literally trillions of non-human animals every year – innocent, sentient beings who are enslaved, experimented on, abused, tortured, raped, mutilated and violently murdered? The immensity of their suffering cannot even be put into words, which is why the most powerful word, a word that has the most intense emotional connotation and a word that encompasses all the different horrifying things that humans do to their victims is precisely a „holocaust“. Many Jewish writers have themselves written about this.
We are all well aware that the Holocaust happened to the Jewish people during World War II at the hands of the Nazis. That doesn‘t mean that another holocaust cannot happen, and indeed, that it is not happening right now (which it is). In short, to attempt to ban the use of the most descriptive word known to mankind for non-human animals under the pretext of sensitivity, but to allow the same word to be used for human animals for the same suffering is a clear example of linguistic speciesism, that is, a discrimination in our language against other sentient beings based on their species.
Until we learn to respect others‘ rights and behave according to the moral baseline, regardless of the species, race, and other differences, we will continue to subject both human and non-human animals – to other holocausts.