PETA France Member Interrupts Air France Flight To Protest Airline’S Cruelty To Monkeys

For Immediate Release:
21 January 2015

Contact:
Hannah Levitt  +44 (0)7525 411733; [email protected]  

PETA FRANCE MEMBER INTERRUPTS AIR FRANCE FLIGHT TO PROTEST AIRLINE’S CRUELTY TO MONKEYS

Protester Calls On Passengers to Unite to Condemn Airline’s Shipments of Primates to Secret Sites to Be Tortured and Killed in Experiments

Photos are available here, here and here. Video footage is available here and here.

ParisIn France, we must reject all suffering. Please, ask Air France to stop transporting primates to laboratories!” – that was the in-flight announcement received loudly and clearly by Air France passengers this morning as they boarded a flight from Paris to Marseille. Just before takeoff, a PETA France supporter pulled out a poster with an image of a monkey being tortured inside a laboratory and reading, “Air France: Cruelty Doesn’t Fly”, and alerted passengers that Air France is the last major airline in the world still delivering monkeys to laboratories in the US and elsewhere, where they are caged, cut open, poisoned and killed in cruel and archaic experiments.

“By shipping thousands of monkeys to laboratories, Air France is aiding the mutilation and killing of these intelligent, social animals as the experimenters who use the drills, scalpels and syringes on them”, says PETA UK Director Mimi Bekhechi. “People in France must be united against all violence and prejudice,  and Air France’s bloody trade in monkeys is a stain on our nation’s reputation in the eyes of the rest of the world.”

Many of the thousands of monkeys shipped from Asia and Africa by Air France were first torn away from their homes and families in the wild. Others are bred on squalid monkey factory farms. These sensitive and intelligent animals are crammed into small wooden crates and transported inside dark cargo holds for nearly 30 hours, often on passenger flights just below unsuspecting customers. When the monkeys reach their final destinations, they are imprisoned in tiny cages and tormented in painful, terrifying – and often deadly – experiments.

Air France is the only major carrier still shipping monkeys destined for experiments. Every major airline in the world – including British Airways, China Airlines, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, Delta Air Lines, Qantas, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Continental, United Airlines, Ibéria, Philippine Airlines and dozens of others – refuses to take any part in this violent industry and prohibits the transportation of primates to laboratories. Peter Gabriel, James Cromwell and Dr Jane Goodall have all recently spoken out against Air France’s cruelty to monkeys.

For more information about Air Frances cruel shipments, please visit PETA.org.uk. 

#