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PETA Warns Trade to "Clean Up, Not Cover Up"

For Immediate Release:

May 5, 2000

Contact:

Jason Baker 98201 22602

Washington, D.C. -- In a letter written today, PETA is challenging the Indian leather industry to take tangible definable steps toward ending unnecessary suffering and cruelty inflicted on cattle killed for leather. The Council for Leather Exports (CLE) is asked to stop misinforming the public with blatantly fraudulent claims that a major source of Indian leather, the second biggest leather export in the world, somehow comes from old cows who died natural deaths. PETA has also asked to attend any meetings that leather industry executives may be granted with government ministers to see that no further misinformation is circulated.

In the letter, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk writes, "How does one coordinate the collection of all the cows that die natural deaths, since they certainly would not collectively die in one place, as they would in, say, a slaughterhouse? To retrieve all these hides from natural deaths is impossible, not to mention ridiculously cost ineffective…The reckless use of such fraudulent information is not only an insult to your consumer, but dangerous." PETA’s letter further states, "The leather industry may court a consumer fraud lawsuit and a defamation suit if it continues to misrepresent the origins of its goods."

According to recent news reports, Mr. M. Mohamed Hashim, chairman of CLE, stated "…the animal, …is primarily slaughtered for the meat. The leather industry enters the picture only after the animal is slaughtered." However, PETA’S leather trade factsheet reveals that the demands of the Indian leather export industry, exceed that of the Indian meat export industry. Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and CLE itself clearly indicate that India’s leather export industry is valued at ten times more than its meat export trade. This means many Indian cows and buffaloes suffer cruel slaughter only for their skins, making meat a by-product of leather, rather than the other way around.

PETA’s investigation into the transport and slaughter of cattle for leather found that Indian cows and buffaloes are driven on a death march to slaughter with no food and water and are crammed onto trucks in bone-crushing conditions. Those who collapse from exhaustion and injury have their eyes smeared with chili peppers and their tails snapped at each joint. In some slaughterhouses, like the notorious Deonar in Mumbai, injured animals are left in the burning sun without shade and are dragged to their deaths, in full view of other conscious animals.

PETA’s overseas campaign has already resulted in the cancellation of export orders by three major U.S. firms (Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy), and is continuing internationally. The group wishes, however, to wake the Indian public up to what is happening secretly, against the will of the Indian people, on its own soil, and so issued the challenge to the leather industry to earnestly work for the enforcement of India’s animal protection laws. PETA’s campaign has already won the support of personalities such as Pamela Anderson Lee, Chrissie Hynde, Arun Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson) and former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney.

Enclosed, please find a copy of PETA’s leather trade factsheet, and PETA’s letter to the CLE and the Ministry of Commerce. For more information, visit www.PETAIndia.com.