For Immediate Release:
25 February, 2001
Contact:
Jason Baker 98201 22602
New Dehli — Rock icon Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, accompanied by a ‘cow’ holding a sign reading, ‘India: Stand By Cattle, Stop Cruel Transport’, will stop at India Gate to collect signatures on a petition urging the prime minister to enforce cattle transport laws. Hynde, recently named ‘one of the top ten most influential woman in rock history’ by MTV, is drawing attention to the plight of Indian cattle as she travels across India, but this will be her only media stop:
Date: 28 February
Time: 12:00 noon sharp
Place: The circle between India Gate and the National Stadium
Says Hynde, ‘All across Europe and North America, people are scandalised by what is happening to India’s cows, bullocks and buffalo. I am now appealing directly to the Indian people and tourists who've traveled to see this great and once kind country.’
Cows were once held sacred in India, but PETA has found quite a different picture. Cattle are overloaded onto rickety lorries that careen at break-neck speeds down pitted roads and across state borders to the country's few legal abattoirs—many animals arrive gouged by others' horns, crushed or suffocated. Cattle are also forced to march for hundreds of miles from town markets in Orissa and Tamil Nadu to state borders—denied even a drop of water or rest. Cows who collapse from injury or exhaustion have tobacco or chili peppers rubbed into their eyes and their tailbones deliberately broken in an effort to force them to stand and walk on.
This appalling abuse directly contradicts the Indian Constitution, which prohibits the slaughter of milk cows, calves and working cattle—a law now completely ignored—and the Indian Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, which mandates that all animals receive humane treatment. PETA has charged that the police regularly take bribes to look the other way as injured cattle are beaten and abused and points out that sorely needed amendments to the Act continue to languish on the prime minister's desk. International appeals continue to pour into the Indian consulate from all over the world.
PETA's campaign to expose the horrific conditions that Indian cattle are kept in during transport has drawn the attention and support of other celebrities. Superstar Pamela Anderson appears in PETA's video exposé of the conditions of cattle shot during visits by PETA's president, Ingrid Newkirk. Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has written to the Indian prime minister, asking for protection for these animals, as has Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and Asia’s top box office star, Jackie Chan. Musician Crispian Mills of Kula Shakur also sent a letter to the prime minister saying, ‘Without animal protection, the principle of dharma is in a state of collapse.” None has received even the courtesy of a reply.
