Posted on July 29, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
29/7/15 – As we published last night, we can now confirm that action has been taken regarding the thousands of animals horrifically slaughtered every five years at the Gadhimai festival.
Here following is a link to the HSI site which gives a good account of the situation.
As you can see from all of our posts given at the end of this post, we have attempted to report on and provide updates relating to the most recent slaughter. Sadly for the animals at the very recent festival, this decision came too late to help them, but we must be thankful now that many thousands of lives will be saved for the future.
Well done everyone who helped with this campaign – victory is yours ! — SAV.
HSI Link:
Victory! Animal Sacrifice Banned at Nepal’s Gadhimai Festival,
Half a Million Animals Saved
Gadhimai Temple Trust agrees to cancel all future animal sacrifice, urges devotees not to bring animals to the festival
Humane Society International, Animal Welfare Network Nepal
New Delhi—In a move that will spare the lives of millions of animals over coming years, animal sacrifice has been cancelled indefinitely at Nepal’s Gadhimai festival, the world’s biggest animal sacrifice event held every five years for around 265 years. The decision announced by the Gadhimai Temple Trust follows rigorous negotiations and campaigning by Animal Welfare Network Nepal and Humane Society International/India.
Gauri Maulekhi, HSI/India consultant & Trustee, People for Animals, who petitioned India’s Supreme Court against the movement of animals from India to the Gadhimai festival, said, “This is a tremendous victory for compassion that will save the lives of countless animals. HSI/India was heartbroken to witness the bloodshed at Gadhimai, and we’ve worked hard to help secure this ban on future sacrifice. We commend the temple committee but acknowledge that a huge task lies ahead of us in educating the public so that they are fully aware. HSI/India & People for Animals will now spend the next three and a half years until the next Gadhimai educating devotees in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal on the Temple Trusts’ decision not to sacrifice animals. Animal sacrifice is a highly regressive practice and no nation in the modern world should entertain it.”
Manoj Gautam, founding member of AWNN and campaigner against the Gadhimai festival, said, “We applaud the temple committee’s decision to end this mass slaughter of innocent animals and hope that they will continue to support us in our future endeavors for protecting animals in the country. AWNN’s progressive move to work directly with the temple committee, with Humane Society International/India’s support has been the key that changed the whole face of the campaign and is the reason for the achievement we have now.”
In 2014, HSI/India and AWNN’s global campaign against the Gadhimai animal massacre captured the public imagination when thousands of national and international supporters expressed their ire and displeasure against the ruthless killing. Protests were held worldwide.
With the Supreme Court of India’s intervention to prohibit the movement of animals from India to Nepal, AWNN and HSI/India saw a reduction of up to 70 percent in the number of animals sacrificed from 2009. The Supreme Court’s order resulted in more than 100 arrests of those breaching the order, and more than 2,500 animals saved. Earlier this month the Supreme Court of India issued directions to states to set up mechanisms to prevent animals from being taken to Gadhimai in future and create awareness against animal sacrifice.
Earlier this year, following the global outrage stemming from the Gadhimai massacre, the temple committee also decided not to sacrifice any animals during the harvest festival (Sankranti). Instead, the temple officials have been confiscating the animals and caring for them until rescuers can rehome them.
Mr Ram Chandra Shah, Chairman of the Gadhimai Temple Trust, issued a statement on the decision to stop holding animal sacrifices during the Gadhimai festival, which can be foundhere.
Please thank the Temple Trustees for their decision. Then, consider donating to support our lifesaving work. You can also sign up to receive more news and action alerts about animal protection.
Facts:
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It is estimated that more than 500,000 buffalo, goats, chickens and other animals were decapitated at Gadhimai in 2009, but in 2014 the numbers had reduced by 70 percent.
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The origins of Gadhimai date back around 265 years ago, when the founder of the Gadhimai Temple, Bhagwan Chowdhary, had a dream that the goddess Gadhimai wanted blood in return for freeing him from prison, protecting him from evil and promising prosperity and power. The goddess asked for a human sacrifice, but Chowdhary successfully offered an animal instead, and this been repeated every five years since.
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Among others, President Emeritus of the World Council of Arya Samaj and noted social activist Swami Agnivesh were at the forefront of urging Indian devotees to boycott the mass slaughter by holding a hunger strike at the heart of the temple.
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D. Sharma, director general of SSB, was awarded with the ‘Leadership in Animal Welfare’ award for his exemplary contribution in curbing the illegal transport of animals during Gadhimai.
Some of our recent SAV posts relating to the most recent festival:
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, PHOTOGRAPHS - **WARNING** (Animal Suffering) | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 28, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
2150hrs GMT London – 28/7/15.
Breaking News – we are hearing today that the Gadhimai Temple Trust agrees to cancel all future animal sacrifice, urges devotees not to bring animals to the festival.
We have a lot of info on this but as this is a very important victory, we need to make a proper post. This will be produced on 29/7.
Please check this site then for further information.
This is confirmed via more than 1 source; so we are certain that it is correct.
More tomorrow ! – SAV.
One of our many previous posts to remind you of the campaign –
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 28, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Link and petition:
Romania: stop the assault on Europe’s last pristine wilderness
Bears and wolves still prowl the ancient forests of the Carpathian Mountains. Yet their days are numbered: organized criminals are illegally clear-cutting entire hillsides to supply European timber companies. Tell the Romanian environmental ministry to put a stop to the destruction.
Illegal logging is rampant in Romania. Since the fall of Communism in 1989, no less than 400,000 hectares of forest have been cleared there without permission, mainly for export as parquet, laminate and fuel pellets. “One of the last remaining virgin forests in Europe is cut being down to heat homes in Austria and Germany,” says Alexander von Bismarck, head of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
An Austrian company, Holzindustrie Schweighofer, is playing a key role in the destruction of Romania’s forests. Schweighofer has been at the heart of a scandal in recent weeks involving forged delivery notes, bribes and dubious concessions.
An EIA video documents Schweighofer’s practices. In it, von Bismarck negotiated with company representatives posing as a foreign investor seeking to sell timber. The environmentalists concluded that Schweighofer deliberately and consciously buys – and indeed, pays bonuses for – illegally harvested timber. CEO Gerald Schweighofer called the video “misleading”.
By contrast, a leaked letter Schweighofer sent to the Romanian prime minister leaves no room for misinterpretation. In it, he threatens to sue the Romanian government in international courts if it does not amend its forestry laws to the company’s advantage.
Schweighofer is now building a new €150 million sawmill in Reci. Work has gone ahead without an environmental impact assessment and Romanian environmentalist Hans Hedrich therefore considers it to be illegal. He believes that the “Schweighofer system” would collapse if the sawmill can be kept from going into operation: “It would be the first step toward rescuing the forests.”
Tell the Romanian Ministry for Environment, Waters and Forests to deny the Reci sawmill an operating permit and to do everything in its power to combat the illegal timber trade.
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere !, Romania - Stray Animal Killings 2013 | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 28, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
African elephant, Loxodonta africana, Gary Stolz, USFWS
Dear Mark,
Every 14 minutes an African elephant is killed.
Elephant populations are crashing as a vicious wave of ivory poaching sweeps the continent. Half of the elephant families in Tanzania have been wiped out since 2009. But the Center for Biological Diversity is taking action now to stop the slaughter — petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect elephants as endangered. We are the only U.S. environmental group taking this crucial step of petitioning to save both forest and savannah elephants in Africa.
We will need your help though — getting elephants protected will be a long and costly battle. Your contribution to the Center will help us save these intelligent, social animals.
Elephants desperately need full protection under the Endangered Species Act. Their current status as a “threatened” species clearly isn’t doing enough: The United States is the second-largest market for ivory in the world.
Full protection under the Endangered Species Act will add a powerful arsenal of new tools to the fight to save these extraordinary animals. It will stop elephant parts from being sold in the United States and crack down on the practice of using the legal trade in old ivory as a cover for illegal trade in new ivory. Last month a senior Chinese wildlife official pledged to end the ivory trade if the United States does the same. This listing would do exactly that.
You can support the Center’s work to protect African elephants with a contribution today.
We’re specialists at using the Endangered Species Act to save wildlife — we’ve gotten hundreds of animals and plants protected under the Act, which has a 90 percent success rate in saving species from extinction. By acting now, we can do our best to keep Africa’s elephants from disappearing. We can’t stand by while the brutal ivory trade wipes out 100 elephants every day.
Your gift to the Center will help secure lifesaving protection for Africa’s elephants. They need your help now.
For the wild,
Kierán Suckling
Executive Director
Center for Biological Diversity
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Posted on July 27, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Lets try and start the week with some good news.
KISIRKAYA CONCENTRATION CAMP HAS BEEN CANCELED!
The court has just explained the decision about Kısırkaya animal concentration camp. İstanbul 6th Administrative Court declared to cancel the concentration camp.
Thank you to all activists who have been interested in our case from across the world.
Kısırkaya concentration camp is still active. We will fight until the end.
With solidarity,
Our post of February 2015 on this specific issue:
Reference:
A shelter was against the regulations of the Court Kısırka
The court said it was clearly contrary to the provisions of the legislation Kısırka shelter. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, lost his lawsuit Kısırka.
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM), which was built in Kisirkaya thousands of denying the request for cancellation of the animals from the shelter capacity projects, was found unlawful. He said that the construction of the shelter is clearly contrary to the regulations.
Joint review of the case to the lawyer concerned, this decision to mean the cancellation of the project.
Animal Welfare and Development Association, which is contrary to the legislation of the shelter project in Kisirkaya have applied for annulment on the grounds IMM, IMM had rejected this demand. Society, he had filed on July 22, 2014 IMM.
Court facility is “partly pasture, will also partially protected area is located on the beach and beach kumull” and said housing permits for the construction of the Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection Board and said that taking views. The decision was made the following statements:
“The dispute, he found the disputed animal shelter construction so that the approval of the relevant 1/1000 scale development plan 1/5000 scale development plan notes the scope of application can not be made, however, but remains in legends meadows and beaches will be protected and coastal kumull areas in the zoning plan Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection Board by decision 1 and the remainder in the 2nd degree natural protected areas and it is clear that about Cultural and Natural Heritage have been made without permission from the Board of Protection of the aspects mentioned above-mentioned legislation and quoted by human activities is contrary to made the policy decision. “
“In the legislation, contrary to animal rights”
Freedom of association is the original earth John, the facilities in which 500 animals should be made available immediately dysfunctional, he said:
“We said from the beginning that this place is contrary to law regulations.
Court whatever it decides, we say that it is contrary to this facility in the first animal rights. Now he sees a violation of the laws of the court in concentration camps. We will also continue to fight until the center becomes a genocide against stray animals.
“The court has given the decision to cancel the 3rd bridge on the route. 3. bridge route is already taking place beyond 3 km of the shelter Kısırka. Natural areas in this two-Kısırka Gümüşdere decision was an important step to protect.
“This needs to stop all the illegal operation. Because animal collection efforts continue for months and now has around 500 animals at the shelter Kısırka.
“The Court’s decision must be rendered useless once this facility.”
They were made by action;
Animal rights activists, exiting Taken from the streets natural habitats of stray animals city against isolation in a remote facility, if the access to the facility, saying it was far from meeting the needs of audit and animals had been opposed to the project.
Shelter construction made against both Kisirkaya in both actions before IMM, CHP and gave parliamentary questions on the subject of HDPE
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 25, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Further donations can still be given even if the target amount has been reached.
Three puppies, black is found in the garbage when she was five days and brought up on the bottle, the two were found on the street, abandoned, without mother, frightened and hungry but healthy yesterday were vaccinated and placed in board.
Please, help us in the payment of two immunizations (for black puppie we had the money for the vaccine) food for puppies and board for a period of one month.
Approximately 40 euros for the three of them.
Board that keeps them accepted to wait for payment.
Please help us to keep them on the safe – they are so small.
To donate please click on the following:
Filed under: Animals Requiring Adoption or Homes - Worldwide, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, SERBIA (Central Serbia: Capital - Belgrade) and (Serbia, SHELTER - Information, The "Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) ALLIANCE | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 25, 2015 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Further donations can still be given even if the target amount has been reached.
Cicko, the cat and 10 puppies
Hello!!
As always, no day is boring in the shelter “Alex”.
The summer heat and temperatures above 30C are not easing the work in the shelter.
Two days ago, we we were notified about the cat that is in a poor health state.
We named him ‘Cicko’.
After examination by a veterinarian it was found that the problem with his eye is congenital, so now we are only cleaning and lubricating it. The upper front teeth are broken, and on his back there is an older burn that heals and looks like a cigarette burn.
Cicko is very cuddly, and as soon as someone looks at him, he immediately starts purring and really trusts people despite of everything he has been through. Since he has no upper front teeth, it is difficult to assess how old he is, but according to the veterinarian he has about 1.5 years.
When Cicko fully heals he will be given up for adoption, and we hope someone will come and offer him a home full of love and attention.
About 2 weeks ago 8 puppies (above) were left in front of the shelter in a cardboard box. We took them, cleaned them, vaccinated them and with the food and lots of puppy fun they are really doing well. Since then 2 more pups were found and now we have 10 of them.
They all need good homes and we hope they will find them.
In the meantime we really need your help to buy food (especially canned food and salami) and to buy the building materials for the maintenance of the shelter, building of new dog houses and fixing of kennels. Please, please, share our appeals so that shelter “Alex” can continue in taking care of its 500 dogs.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Filed under: Animals Requiring Adoption or Homes - Worldwide, CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, SERBIA (Central Serbia: Capital - Belgrade) and (Serbia, SHELTER - Information, The "Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) ALLIANCE | Leave a comment »
