PETA Will Continue Distributing ‘Blood-Thirsty Kfc Colonel’ Pamphlet Following Asa Ruling

For Immediate Release:
18 June 2008


Contact:
Sam Glover 0207 357 9229, ext 229


London – People passing by or going into KFC fast-food outlets will continue to receive People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) graphic anti-KFC leaflet following this week’s reversal of a preliminary recommendation issued by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The leaflet depicts a demonic, blood-soaked Colonel Sanders in the act of stabbing a chicken and contains photographs of abused chickens.


The ASA’s ruling followed a complaint by a woman who claimed to have received PETA’s leaflet through her letterbox. The ASA acknowledged that the leaflet is intended to promote animal welfare concerns and agreed with PETA “that PETA had made reasonable efforts to instruct its supporters not to distribute the leaflet in this way”.


PETA is planning to step up its campaign against KFC and the distribution of its anti-KFC leaflet throughout the UK in the wake of KFC Canada’s agreement two weeks ago to switch to a more humane slaughter method and start serving vegan “chicken” in hundreds of its Canadian restaurants.


PETA is seeking reforms because KFC suppliers cut off chickens’ sensitive beaks without any painkillers and drug and breed the birds to grow so large that they become crippled under their own weight. The birds’ throats are cut while they are still conscious, and millions are scalded to death in defeathering tanks every year. A PETA US undercover investigator caught workers at a KFC “Supplier of the Year” slaughterhouse spitting tobacco into live birds’ eyes, spray-painting the birds’ faces and tearing their heads off. Undercover investigations into KFC suppliers in Germany, India, the UK and Australia have turned up similar abuses, including crippled chickens kept in crowded, filthy conditions. The Sunday Mirror published a report on an investigation into a KFC supplier in the UK with the headline “Distressed and Dying in a Cramped Shed – Nobody Does Chicken Like KFC”.


“If KFC treated cats or dogs the way KFC suppliers treat these birds, KFC would be closed down and all those involved in perpetuating this cruelty would be in prison”, says PETA founder Ingrid E Newkirk. “KFC has ignored the recommendations of its own animal welfare advisors, and we are letting people know that.”


PETA’s correspondence with the ASA is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.