Airline Backtracks From Ban and Continues Cruel and Deadly Trade; Campaign by PETA and Its Affiliates Travels From Mumbai to Ottawa
For Immediate Release:
May 6, 2013
Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382
Ottawa -- Wearing prisoner suits and dog, rabbit, and rat masks; crouching in stacked cages; and holding signs that read, "Air India Ships Animals to Deadly Experiments," six PETA members will make a plea for animals' lives outside the Indian Embassy in Ottawa on Tuesday. The action is in protest of Air India's about-face on its ban on transporting animals to laboratories, where they are caged, cut into, poisoned, and killed. This protest and a similar one just days ago in Washington, D.C., mark the first actions taken by PETA against Air India. PETA India has been campaigning against the airline since it lifted its ban.
When: Tuesday, May 7, 12 noon
Where: High Commission of India, on the southwest corner of Beechwood Avenue and Springfield Road, Ottawa
"Air India's repeated assurances that it will refuse to transport animals to laboratories apparently meant nothing—the airline has gone right back to shipping animals to their deaths," says PETA Senior Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "Air India officials are every bit as guilty of the pain, suffering, and death that these animals are subjected to as the experimenters who wield the poisons and scalpels."
Many of the largest and most well-known carriers in the world, including U.S. Airways, Virgin Airlines, JetBlue, Hawaiian Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air, EVA Air, FedEx, and UPS, prohibit shipping animals to laboratories. Jet Airways, India's second-largest airline, also recently committed to a ban on transporting animals slated for experimentation.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.