Kent Activist Disrupts Ethiopian Airlines Consultant’s Speech Over Monkey Transports

Kent Activist Disrupts Ethiopian Airlines Consultant’s Speech Over Monkey Transports

Herne Bay, Kent – This morning, PETA campaigner Reuben Skeats, 25, from Herne Bay, stormed the Passenger Terminal Expo at IFEMA Madrid, unveiling a sign reading, “Ethiopian Airlines: STOP Cruel Monkey Shipments,” during Ethiopian Airlines consultant Tariq Al-Quanni’s speech. The campaigner, who had previously been arrested in Ethiopia for defending monkeys, challenged the company’s gruesome role in the torment and deaths of endangered monkeys in overseas experiments. A video of the disruption is available here.

The airline, which – who originated in Mauritius and Southeast Asia – in the cargo holds of passenger aeroplanes, even though it previously told PETA US that the company had a policy against the practice. The animals are sent to US laboratories, where they are mutilated, maimed and killed in painful experiments.

“It’s shameful that Ethiopian Airlines is still getting away with hauling terrified, potentially illegally trafficked monkeys across the world to be cut open, infected with diseases, and killed in US laboratories,” says PETA Campaigner Reuben Skeats. “This airline has aligned itself with a violent industry that profits from suffering. Ethiopian Airlines needs to ground these death flights for good and join the dozens of major airlines that refuse to be a part of this cruel and deceitful trade.”

Monkeys transported to laboratories are torn away from their families, shoved into the cargo holds of planes, and flown around the globe to be used in cruel experiments that don’t help humans. animals also pose a public health risk. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged that in the past three years, imported monkeys have carried deadly diseases and pathogens – including tuberculosis and a dangerous bacterium that’s classified as a bioterrorism agent.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]

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