Campaign Against Australia's Export of Live Animals to the Middle East Reaches Kuwait: Video on Why this Campaign is Occurring

This is the fourth article I’ve done on this campaign. They now have taken it to Kuwait. Here again is the video and story on why this campaign is so important. This includes actual footage of the just horrible treatment that occurs to sheep. You can see it here at:
http://geari.blogspot.com/2006/03/
unbelievable-video-exposes_08.html

Article:

Peta stages one-man protest in Sharq

http://www.kuwaittimes.net/Navariednews.asp?
dismode=article&artid=1299953253

By Velina Nacheva
KUWAIT: A lone female animal rights activist wearing a hijab held a protest near the Australian embassy in Sharq yesterday. Jodi Ruckley, from the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), demonstrated against Australia's export of live sheep to Kuwait and the rest of the Middle East. Ruckley's silent, 15-minute protest drew little attention. Dressed in a T-shirt reading "Australia: End Live Exports" and surrounded by five cardboard cut-out sheep, Ruckley explained the objective of the first-of-its-kind campaign in Kuwait. "We would like to send a clear message to the Australian government that we won't stop with this campaign until they put a ban on the export of all animals, particularly to the Middle East region," she said.

Peta, a worldwide animal rights activist organisation is known for its typically outlandish and daring protests and stunts. By comparison, the protest in Kuwait was a quiet, unremarkable affair. Ruckley arrived in Kuwait as part of Peta's Middle Eastern campaign to bring attention to "abuses in slaughterhouses" in Egypt, Kuwait and Qatar and other Arab states. "Each year, millions of Australian sheep and cattle are shipped thousands of miles through all weather conditions on extremely crowded, multi-tiered ships to Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Thousands of animals die en route and those who survive are typically killed by crude methods which would be criminal in Australia," said a Peta press release.

Along with Animals Australia, another activist organisation, Peta investigated and recorded the practices of the municipal slaughterhouse in Kuwait City. Asked about the authenticity of the videotape, Ruckley told Kuwait Times, "There is a video footage of them [activists] inside the slaughterhouse. I do not think you can get any stronger evidence than this." Ruckley provided an 11-minute video footage said to have been filmed inside slaughterhouses in Kuwait, Oman and Egypt. The film begins with the statement, "In this municipal slaughterhouse in Kuwait terrified sheep are dragged by their hind legs over to a drain where they are piled up and have their throats slit to let the blood drain out."

According to the halal method of slaughter, the animal's throat must be cut with a sharp knife. On the Kuwait portion of the videotape footage, a clean slaughterhouse is shown where a sheep kept in an individual space has its throat cut by a visibly clean slaughterhouse worker. The sheep was separated from the rest of the herd so it did not suffer seeing other dead sheep. Another note interrupts the footage saying, "This sheep is being slaughtered over a urinal drain... In Kuwai, investigators found that sheep were slaughtered in crude, filthy conditions." But compared with the footage of slaughterhouses in Egypt, the conditions in Kuwait look pristine.
The video then goes on to feature atrocities of cruel slaughtering of cows in Cairo's Bassatin slaughterhouse. A slaughterhouse worker stabs the cow in the eyes and slashes its legs until it falls down over another recently killed cow lying in a pool of blood. The worker looks as if he is shooting a movie scene. Constantly turning to the camera he keeps on poking the cow repeatedly, slashes under its tail and chases it over slippery ledges. Australia earns more than $909m from the trade, agencies report. Ruckley provided Peta's alternative to livestock exports. "In Australia we have approximately 120 halal-certified slaughterhouses. This is a clear alternative that can basically be a win for the people of Australia, the people of the Middle East and mostly for the animals."