PETA Exhibit Comparing Slaves To Factory-Farmed Animals Debuts In Brighton
For Immediate Release:
10 August 2007
Contact:
Marie Claire Macintosh 020 7357 9229 ext 239
Brighton – Is it appropriate to compare perpetually chained performing bears to shackled human slaves? Or battery-caged hens to child sweatshop workers? Or painful procedures performed on unwilling human subjects to the experiments that torture and kill millions of animals in British laboratories? These are questions that PETA poses as it debuts its provocative new exhibit called the “Animal Liberation Project” tomorrow in Brighton. The launch of the Animal Liberation Project coincides with the 200th anniversary of Parliament’s ban on the human slave trade. The exhibit is supported by celebrated novelist, playwright and actor Benjamin Zephaniah – the well-known social justice advocate.
Date: Saturday, 11 August
Time: 12 noon
Place: Churchill Square (Opposite H&M), Brighton
The exhibit, which can be viewed at peta.org.uk/animalliberation, illustrates that the “might makes right” mentality that was the foundation of human slavery, child labour and the denial of women’s equality is also responsible for factory farming, animal experimentation, cruelty to animals in circuses and other forms of abuse. The exhibit consists of eight large panels with photos showing the parallels between the oppression of humans and the exploitation of animals and focuses on how present and past societies strive to justify the abuse – regardless of the victims’ species. Africans captured and forced into slavery were often compared to animals in an effort to justify their treatment; they were even referred to as “beasts”.
“Because today’s victims of tyranny are unable to speak for themselves, it is up to people of principle to speak out for them,” says Zephaniah. “Animals’ lives are as important to them as ours are to us. We must stand up for them, as good people from other eras stood up and even risked their own lives in order to defend children from sweatshops and women’s right to vote and fought against massacres of entire groups of people and other acts of violence.”
One image from the launch is attached. Others are available upon request. The display with an audio narration by Benjamin Zephaniah as well as a video interview with him can be viewed at peta.org.uk/animalliberation. For more information on PETA, please visit PETA.org.uk.