Ingrid was successful as she raised awareness to an act that many didn’t know existed.
Article:
PETA founder held in India over bullfight protest
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080118/
ts_nm/india_peta_bulls_dc_1
Fri Jan 18, 7:26 AM ET
CHENNAI, India (Reuters) - Police arrested the head of the animal rights group PETA for a breach of public peace and insulting religious feelings while protesting against a bullfighting festival in south India, officials said on Friday.
Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, was held on Thursday after she blindfolded a statue of Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi to protest against cruelty towards bulls in the ancient sport of "jallikattu."
Organized as part of the January harvest festival of "pongal," jallikattu is India's version of the running of the bulls which takes place every year in the Spanish city of Pamplona.
Fighters and muscular wild bulls -- often pepped up with large amounts of homemade liquor -- dash after each other in the streets of the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Unlike the Spanish version of the sport, the aim is not to kill the bulls but to dominate and tame them, and pluck away bundles of money or other treats tied to their specially sharpened horns.
Police said Newkirk was held on charges of breaching public peace, hurting religious sentiments and damaging statues after she entered a park in Coimbatore town and put a cloth around the eyes of Gandhi's statue.
She then hung a placard saying: "Reject cruel sport jallikattu." She was released on bail.
Newkirk told Reuters she did not mean any disrespect to Gandhi but blindfolded his statue to symbolically shield him from the cruelty of the sport.
"In the name of taming of the bull, 10, 20, 50 people torment the animal and thousands cheer," she said. "You can see fear and confusion in the eyes of the animal as it tries to flee."
India's animal welfare board has also criticized the festival saying men beat the animals and throw burning chilli powder in their eyes, ears and mouth to enrage them.
India's Supreme Court banned jallikattu last year, saying it was cruel and not in keeping with what it described as the country's non-violent traditions.
But that ban was watered down this month, and the court said the popular sport could be held under strict government vigil.
Fighters and spectators have been gored or trampled to death, and the number of injured fighters has often run into the hundreds. The festival has been marketed as a tourist attraction in recent years.
Showing posts with label festivals animal cruelty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label festivals animal cruelty. Show all posts
Friday, January 18, 2008
Friday, October 19, 2007
Ridiculous and Cruel 15-Day Annual Religious Festival Dashain in Nepal Marks Beginning Of Slaughter of Thousands of Goats, Chickens, Buffalo, Ducks
Once again, a ridiculous reason to engage in cruel mass slaughter.
“Visible in the Kathmandu traffic among all the shoppers are youths walking with herds of goats; motorbikes with live chickens dangling from the sides; and trucks crammed with buffaloes arriving from India.
On Friday and Saturday, and especially during the night in between, known as "Kal Ratri" or the "Dark Night", thousands of these animals as well as sheep and ducks will be slaughtered across the nation.”
Article:
Revulsion over Nepal animal slaughter
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7052543.stm
By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Kathmandu
A goat offering is a holy act for Hindu devotees
The people of Nepal are celebrating their biggest national festival, Dashain.
The 15-day annual religious feast marks the victory of the Hindu goddess Durga over a feared demon and symbolises the triumph of good over evil.
There are a wealth of rites in the goddess's name, and sacred grass is being grown in special pots all over the country to be used as a blessing this Sunday, the 10th and most important festival day.
Every Hindu home has been cleaned and decorated to welcome the goddess. The markets have been heaving as shoppers seek out new clothes and foodstuffs, and many thousands are returning to their home villages from the cities and from foreign countries to spend time with their families.
Mass slaughter
But increasingly voices are being heard questioning what takes place on its eighth and ninth days - this Friday and Saturday - when hundreds of thousands of animals are ritually slaughtered as a sacrifice for Durga.
The Dashain festival is a time of great merriment
Visible in the Kathmandu traffic among all the shoppers are youths walking with herds of goats; motorbikes with live chickens dangling from the sides; and trucks crammed with buffaloes arriving from India.
On Friday and Saturday, and especially during the night in between, known as "Kal Ratri" or the "Dark Night", thousands of these animals as well as sheep and ducks will be slaughtered across the nation.
Animals are killed in the smallest villages or in cities like Kathmandu, where the courtyard of the Taleju Temple, opened just once a year, will end up flowing with blood.
It will yield a feast of meat. But it is also said to have a religious meaning - the killing being a sacrifice to honour the goddess and prevent her anger in the year ahead.
The new dissenters are questioning both the scale and the methods of the killing.
An article in the Nepali Times weekly says most buffaloes, like smaller animals, are decapitated but the bigger ones are battered to death with a heavy hammer on the forehead.
'Such cruelty'
A respected botanist, Dr Tirtha Shrestha - writing in the same paper - says that in Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, pigs are skinned alive and their beating hearts offered to the temple, while in a nearby village people tear apart a live goat.
He asks what kind of people take pleasure in such cruelty, even suggesting that a society which treats animals so brutally will be brutal to human beings too.
"Decapitating a bleating buffalo or goat should not be the symbol of the Nepali civilisation," he says. "Why are we exhibiting such cruelty, and how does this reflect on our society?"
The festival is a time when families get together
Dr Shrestha accepts that to eat meat, animals must be killed.
"But why do we have to inflict such pain before we do so? This is not just inhuman, it is also against the law in many countries. It is morally wrong to torture fellow creatures under any circumstances, but to do so in the name of religion is a sin."
Another Nepali man, Arun Poudel, sending a mass email, picks up on this last theme.
Animal sacrifices
He says people should stop killing animals in the name of Hinduism's respected goddesses and gods.
"Maybe the deities will start wanting human blood soon," he muses grimly.
Such sentiments are spreading. Although animal rights are not a major concern in Nepal, an animal protection group recently held a rally in the capital against the yearly tradition of animal sacrifices.
And, speaking to the BBC, one Nepalese journalist who has been a vegetarian for many years said he was delaying his visit to his village to avoid the killing.
"I can't stand the slaughter," he said. "If a goat is killed, I run away. When I was a small kid, I'd hide indoors all day or go to the jungle."
He believes about 1,000 animals will die in his small village in the hills where, he says, certain men have taken up the "hobby" of Dashain slaughtering and will provide the service for many households.
The Kathmandu Post newspaper reports on another group of dissenters. It says two entire villages in Gorkha, in west-central Nepal, have shunned sacrifices for as long as 90 years and gone largely vegetarian as they believe in non-violence.
At the moment, however, these voices are still few and far between.
Nepal is a country where most people are too poor to eat meat regularly and regard it as a great treat. There is not as strong a tradition of vegetarianism as there is in neighbouring India, which also has a Hindu majority.
For the time being at least, The feast-day spilling of animals' blood looks set to continue.
“Visible in the Kathmandu traffic among all the shoppers are youths walking with herds of goats; motorbikes with live chickens dangling from the sides; and trucks crammed with buffaloes arriving from India.
On Friday and Saturday, and especially during the night in between, known as "Kal Ratri" or the "Dark Night", thousands of these animals as well as sheep and ducks will be slaughtered across the nation.”
Article:
Revulsion over Nepal animal slaughter
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7052543.stm
By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Kathmandu
A goat offering is a holy act for Hindu devotees
The people of Nepal are celebrating their biggest national festival, Dashain.
The 15-day annual religious feast marks the victory of the Hindu goddess Durga over a feared demon and symbolises the triumph of good over evil.
There are a wealth of rites in the goddess's name, and sacred grass is being grown in special pots all over the country to be used as a blessing this Sunday, the 10th and most important festival day.
Every Hindu home has been cleaned and decorated to welcome the goddess. The markets have been heaving as shoppers seek out new clothes and foodstuffs, and many thousands are returning to their home villages from the cities and from foreign countries to spend time with their families.
Mass slaughter
But increasingly voices are being heard questioning what takes place on its eighth and ninth days - this Friday and Saturday - when hundreds of thousands of animals are ritually slaughtered as a sacrifice for Durga.
The Dashain festival is a time of great merriment
Visible in the Kathmandu traffic among all the shoppers are youths walking with herds of goats; motorbikes with live chickens dangling from the sides; and trucks crammed with buffaloes arriving from India.
On Friday and Saturday, and especially during the night in between, known as "Kal Ratri" or the "Dark Night", thousands of these animals as well as sheep and ducks will be slaughtered across the nation.
Animals are killed in the smallest villages or in cities like Kathmandu, where the courtyard of the Taleju Temple, opened just once a year, will end up flowing with blood.
It will yield a feast of meat. But it is also said to have a religious meaning - the killing being a sacrifice to honour the goddess and prevent her anger in the year ahead.
The new dissenters are questioning both the scale and the methods of the killing.
An article in the Nepali Times weekly says most buffaloes, like smaller animals, are decapitated but the bigger ones are battered to death with a heavy hammer on the forehead.
'Such cruelty'
A respected botanist, Dr Tirtha Shrestha - writing in the same paper - says that in Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, pigs are skinned alive and their beating hearts offered to the temple, while in a nearby village people tear apart a live goat.
He asks what kind of people take pleasure in such cruelty, even suggesting that a society which treats animals so brutally will be brutal to human beings too.
"Decapitating a bleating buffalo or goat should not be the symbol of the Nepali civilisation," he says. "Why are we exhibiting such cruelty, and how does this reflect on our society?"
The festival is a time when families get together
Dr Shrestha accepts that to eat meat, animals must be killed.
"But why do we have to inflict such pain before we do so? This is not just inhuman, it is also against the law in many countries. It is morally wrong to torture fellow creatures under any circumstances, but to do so in the name of religion is a sin."
Another Nepali man, Arun Poudel, sending a mass email, picks up on this last theme.
Animal sacrifices
He says people should stop killing animals in the name of Hinduism's respected goddesses and gods.
"Maybe the deities will start wanting human blood soon," he muses grimly.
Such sentiments are spreading. Although animal rights are not a major concern in Nepal, an animal protection group recently held a rally in the capital against the yearly tradition of animal sacrifices.
And, speaking to the BBC, one Nepalese journalist who has been a vegetarian for many years said he was delaying his visit to his village to avoid the killing.
"I can't stand the slaughter," he said. "If a goat is killed, I run away. When I was a small kid, I'd hide indoors all day or go to the jungle."
He believes about 1,000 animals will die in his small village in the hills where, he says, certain men have taken up the "hobby" of Dashain slaughtering and will provide the service for many households.
The Kathmandu Post newspaper reports on another group of dissenters. It says two entire villages in Gorkha, in west-central Nepal, have shunned sacrifices for as long as 90 years and gone largely vegetarian as they believe in non-violence.
At the moment, however, these voices are still few and far between.
Nepal is a country where most people are too poor to eat meat regularly and regard it as a great treat. There is not as strong a tradition of vegetarianism as there is in neighbouring India, which also has a Hindu majority.
For the time being at least, The feast-day spilling of animals' blood looks set to continue.
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