Middle East Campaign Launched to Highlight Abuses in The Region’s Slaughterhouses and to Elicit Public Support for a Ban on Livestock Imports

I wrote about the absolutely disgusting practice of livestock import from Australia to the Middle East. That included 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

Let’s hope this campaign is successful. The accepted cruelty in that region is beyond belief.

Article:

Animal rights campaign launched

http://www.gulftimes.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2
&item_no=85523&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17

Published: Tuesday, 9 May, 2006, 11:39 AM Doha Time

PETA activist Nadia Montasser speaks to reporters in Dubai yesterday
DUBAI: Radical animal rights group PETA launched for the first time yesterday a Middle East campaign to highlight alleged abuses in the region’s slaughterhouses and to elicit public support for a ban on livestock imports.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), best known for its aggressive stunts against celebrities who wear or promote fur, held a press conference in Dubai to deliver its findings.

It wants concerned citizens in the region to rally behind its call to stop the import of livestock from Australia, a lucrative trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars that has seen its share of controversy and even diplomatic rows over the years.

“This is our first salvo to engage people in the region,” PETA’s Africa representative Andrew Butler said.

“We are making a call to people in the Middle East to stop buying live sheep from Australia. This comes after we failed to get any response from the agriculture ministers of the countries involved in the trade to the urgent letters and video footage of the investigation we sent.”

He said that another key aspect to the issue was “the hellish trip” that could take up to three weeks that sheep make on overcrowded container ships from Australia.

Although PETA advocates vegetarianism, Butler said the organisation is taking a “pragmatist” approach and is calling for people in the region to import frozen meat instead.

Butler later told reporters that PETA activists intend to show up at agriculture ministries in the region including Jordan to confront officials there with their findings.

PETA released footage, which it said was filmed by its undercover activists in Middle East countries, showing cattle and sheep kicked in the face and stabbed in the eye before being slaughtered in a manner described by the organisation as non-compliant with Muslim halal practices.

“Australian sheep and cattle shipped to the Middle East suffer atrocities beyond your worst nightmares,” read the caption to one of the videos, said to have been filmed in Cairo’s Basateen slaughterhouse.

Nadia Montasser, a PETA activist in Egypt, said she was determined to press ahead with the issue despite the uphill battle she faces. – AFP