People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has launched a brand-new ad in Kuwait which aims to encourage people to demand an end to live-sheep imports from Australia. The shocking ad, which appears in English and Arabic, shows hundreds of sheep crammed tightly into stalls on a multi-tiered ship and confined amid their own waste next to the tagline “Before They’re Cooked in Yoghurt and Spices, They’re Marinated in Urine and Faeces”. The ad goes on to explain that live-animal imports are inhumane, that urine and faeces can contaminate sheep’s food, and that open bloody sores often go untreated, helping to spread disease.
In 2005, Kuwait imported more than 800,000 sheep from Australia in this cruel and filthy manner. Up to 100,000 animals are loaded on each ship, where they are subjected to long journeys in all types of weather extremes. In 2005 alone, almost 40,000 sheep died en route to the Middle East after becoming diseased or injured.
PETA’s 2006 investigation of Kuwait’s main “municipal” abattoir revealed that the suffering continues after the animals arrive. Sheep were dragged into the slaughter hall by their rear legs, inverted over a blood drain and killed by having their throats slit several times – all in full view of other animals, who paced around in a disturbed manner while awaiting their own slaughter.
“We’re calling on the people of Kuwait to stand up against the cruel transport and prolonged suffering of sheep by demanding an end to live imports”, says PETA activist Nadia Montasser. “Crowding tens of thousands of animals on ships amid their own waste for weeks on end should be unacceptable to halal Muslims who believe that ‘an act of cruelty to a beast is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being’.”
The ad will later be released in Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
