03/01/06 Quarantine and Inspection, not Unnecessary Barbaric Killing
Animal Friends is filing a criminal complaint and announcing a protest in front of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management
Last Sunday, representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management deliberately lied and tried to obstruct media and public from accessing the information about the time and way chickens and other feathery animals killed for the purposes of rooting up the bird flu around the area of Pantana Nature Park, near the town of Trogir. Ministry explained that it doesn’t want to disturb public with images of animal killings, but it still managed to upset public by provoking indignation with the attempt of manipulating the media and hiding brutality in killings by neck breaking and beating chickens to death with a stick.
Because of the repeated unnecessary and barbaric killing of healthy feathery animals, and covering up the facts to media and public, Animal Friends Croatia is announcing a protest in front of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management building, Ulica grada Vukovara 78, Wednesday, January 1, at noon.
Not only that we condemn what Croatian public is disgust with, but we are also trying to come forward in protection of objective public information, with reference to realistic coverage and uncensored public informing, relevant to Croatia altogether, as well as every Croatian citizen.
Objectives of the protest are:
- that, while fighting infectious diseases, Croatia respects regulations of International Office For Epizootic (OIE), leading institution in the field of animal protection during animal execution for the purposes of disease control, of which guidelines, as its member, Croatia violates by beating the chickens to death
- that the prevention against bird flu is primarily carried out through the monitoring of wild birds, quarantines, high pecuniary penalties to quarantine offenders, and surveillance of hazardous areas, and only if necessary by killing healthy chickens
- that only in the case of real danger of spreading the bird flu amongst domestic feathery animals, which wasn't the case so far, animals would actually be put to sleep (painless euthanasia) with prior drugging by ether anaesthetics only
- that in the cases of putting animals to sleep due to a contagious disease emerging, treatment with animals would be supervised by veterinary inspectors, and those who perform executions must be qualified and competent for putting animals to sleep in as painless as possible manner
- that the information about solving the bird flu problem are not hidden from media and public, that there would be no lying to the press, but allowing unobstructed access to information, so the treatment towards animals would be transparent
- that the term euthanasia is no longer used for treatment like neck breaking and beating to death with sticks
- that the Ministry Of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management takes responsibility due to breaking the Animal Welfare Act and Criminal Law which prohibits animal torturing, to inquire all the fouls and violations of the law linked to the cases of so called "euthanizing" of chickens and other poultry, and to take measures for all the veterinarians who, arbitrarily or under the instructions of the Ministry, killed chickens by beating with the stick, so they can be sanctioned for deliberate infliction of brutal force and suffering to animals
- that the Ministry educate public about the real causes of bird flu, and methods of prevention.
Animal Friends referred these petitions to Mate Brstilo from the Ministry Bureau of Veterinary, with claims that in dealing with problems of bird flu animal welfare must taken into consideration as well as human health. Organization filed a criminal complaint to District Attorney's Office against those responsible in the Ministry and unknown veterinarians for beating the chickens to death with the stick, and demanding a criminal investigation for act of torturing animals according to Criminal Law, Article 260, and for breaking the Animal Welfare Act.
