PETA Targets Atrocious Treatment of Animals for India’s Leather Trade
For Immediate Release:
13 November, 2001
Contact:
Jason Baker (0) 98201 22602, JasonB@peta.org
New York — Holding signs that read, ‘Stop India’s Cruel Animal Transport,’ and, ‘Strengthen India’s Penalty for Animal Cruelty,’ a giant ‘cow’ protested the cruel and illegal treatment of animals for India’s leather export trade by following Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during his visit to the United States last week. When the prime minister visited President Bush in Washington, DC, and the United Nations in New York, PETA’s ‘cow’—who stalked Vajpayee on his visit to the US last year—again confronted him for refusing to lift a finger in the last year to end the torture of cows, buffalo, goats and other animals who are killed in India’s international leather trade.
PETA is angry because Vajpayee has failed to enforce existing animal protection laws and has done nothing to pass amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960 which would strengthen the currently weak and outdated penalty for abusing animals. The animal rights group is asking the prime minister to do the following to improve the lives of animals who are illegally transported and slaughtered for their skins:
- Follow up on his request to state governments in June 2000 to enforce animal protection laws and compel leather and meat industry officials to follow laws. Because he hasn’t followed up, his request to state governments has been largely ignored.
- Pass amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960 that would strengthen the currently weak, outdated and ignored penalties for heinous cruelty. Manisha Koirala, Akshaye Khanna, Jackie Shroff, Anupam Kher, Raveena Tandon, Shyam Benegal, Hema Malini, Falguni Pathak, Juhi Chawla and many other stars petitioned the government to pass these amendments in June.
PETA’s campaign has resulted in the agreement of companies such as Nike, Reebok, Eddie Bauer, Gap Inc. and Nordstrom not to purchase Indian leather until conditions for animals improve. It has been more than a year since the Dalai Lama, Sir Paul McCartney, Jackie Chan and others wrote to Prime Minister Vajpayee, urging him to take action against illegally transported and slaughtered animals in India—animals who are being killed so their hides can be exported to the West. Videotaped footage shows animals continue to be beaten, crammed into vehicles so tightly they suffer broken bones, cut with dull knives in full view of other animals and often dismembered and skinned alive.
‘When the prime minister spoke of peace among nations, we hope he remembered Gandhi’s words that the greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated,’ says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, who has witnessed the mistreatment of Indian animals firsthand. ‘The West buys, India provides, but the trail from East to West is filled with the pain and suffering of Indian animals.’
For more information, please visit www.PETAIndia.com.
