All photographs are not associated with the article – they are publicly available via Google “no copyright infringement is intended”
Animals in Iowa just got a little safer.
A law was struck down that would have made it illegal for a person to get a job at a livestock farm, slaughterhouse, or puppy mill with the purpose of conducting an undercover investigation on animal welfare, environmental health and safety, or working conditions. A person doing this type of work could have faced up to two years of jail time.
This “ag gag” law was passed in 2012 and supported by the livestock industry. A federal judge found the law violated the First Amendment right to free speech.
Challengers to the the law were the ACLU of Iowa, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, PETA, and Bailing out Benji, as well as others.
Rita Bettis Austen, legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, said, “Ag gag clearly is a violation of Iowans’ First Amendment rights to free speech. It has effectively silenced advocates and ensured that animal cruelty, unsafe food safety practices, environmental hazards, and inhumane working conditions go unreported for years.”
Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Stephen Wells said in a statement, “Ag-Gag laws are a pernicious attempt by animal exploitation industries to hide some of the worst forms of animal abuse in the United States.”
Since the law went into effect in 2012, no undercover investigations have been conducted. However, investigations in the past have revealed Iowa workers throwing piglets onto a concrete floor and beating pigs with iron rods.
Ag gag laws inhibit not only journalists and activists from conducting investigations, but also prevent other employees from reporting code violations, pollution, and cruelty.
The Iowa Attorney General’s office stated it is considering whether or not to appeal the decision. The Iowa Pork Producers Association said they would continue to fight, feeling the need to protect their production from those who would reveal what really goes on.
Laws in other states banning undercover work for animal cruelty have also been stuck down. Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming all passed similar legislation that failed to stand up in federal court. North Carolina is currently defending yet another attempt to stifle activists’ work for animals.
But the precedent has been set that undercover work is legally protected, and as ag gag laws fail in court again and again the hope is that the livestock industry will no longer be able to use this type of legislation to prevent the truth about conditions to get out.
Although this doesn’t end the suffering of the thousands of animals suffering in factory farms and puppy mills right now, it is a positive step moving forward. Those with the best interest of animals, the environment, and communities at heart have the ability to bring transparency and awareness in the future.
We have been personally saying on both SAV and WAV sites for many years that the ‘average / normal’ citizen of the EU is basically being ignored by the ‘maters’ (Junker, Tusk etc) when it comes to issues that they have strong feelings about, such as the live transport of animals and the 8 hour rule.
8 hours was a major campaign across the EU to limit the journey times for animals in transport to a maximum of 8 hours; thereby cutting down on the suffering which is forever being presented to the EU ‘masters’; which is then completely ignored by them. The Status Quo rules you could say.
Well now, Professor Cedomir Nestorovic of the ESSEC Business School; has said that the EU elections in May 2019 are the biggest ‘fear’ for the EU; as well as Brexit; as there will be a rise in populistic parties all over Europe. In other words; the normal EU citizen is getting ‘bummed off’ with the dictatorship of Brussels and will this time vote for parties that reflect their views a lot more comer the May elections for Members of the European Parliament (MEP).
“I am not really confident that we will have some kind of Europe building capacity in the future as we have in the past.” said the Professor.
He added: “I think the higher fear is the elections in May because for the major part of the European countries, the UK is over, the UK has left the European Union.
The European elections to elect new MEP’s throughout Europe to represent ‘the normal EU citizen’ will take place between May 23 and 26, less than two months after Britain’s exit from the Brussels bloc.
The situations in Italy and France for example represent such problems. French President Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini are expected to become the symbols of the two sides at the upcoming vote. Neither of the two leading politicians will actually stand for a seat in the European Parliament elections; but the two political forces have made it clear they will fight for their respective political sides to determine the future of the continent.
The French President (Mr Macron) has been battling in France f9or weeks now to control the so-called “yellow vest” protests which have paralysed parts of France since erupting last month with demonstrators clashing with police, torching cars, erecting roadblocks and burning barricades. Signals that the ‘normal’ EU citizen is not happy with what is coming from EU governments as well as from Brussels (EU).
The Italian eurosceptics will likely team up with MEPs from (French) Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and (Hungary) Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, who are also expected to gain votes.
The UK should not be presenting any MEP’s for election in the May votes; as the UK should have left the EU by this time – the process of ‘Brexit’; which again was introduced in 2016 by British citizens being given the option of remaining or leaving the EU. Again here; the majority of citizens in the UK voted for Britain to leave the EU; as they felt they were not being listened to; represented or actions taken to support their wishes at the EU in Brussels.
So; the elections in May 2019 will be very interesting throughout Europe. We at WAV do expect that the ‘common man / woman’ of Europe will have their say at the election booth and that post May; there will be major changes in the make up of the European Parliament.
Junker, Tusk and others have been presented with real evidence for change over the years. They have decided to ignore it; putting themselves on a higher pillar than the people of the EU. In May, we envisage that the ‘worm will turn’ and the pillars will come crumbling down.
Who knows; in the post 2019 elections; we may even witness animals being transported throughout the EU for a maximum of 8 hours ! – They were warned that they needed to change the rules; they ignored it; maybe in May they will pay the price !
For all of us who see it as a mission to fight for the rights of animals and to give them a better world, there is always a balance sheet exclusively dealing with this mission.
What have we achieved in this direction is often a difficult decision for us personally, how much do we write that is good, how much do we write that is sad.
We all know that we are always faced with a perfectly equipped system of violence, lobbying and exploitation that makes our struggle ever more difficult.
Witnessing the suffering of any animal(s); through video, photos or other media routes is never an easy one for any of us. It takes its toll; but we have to be strong against an often stronger opposition of abusers, bureaucrats and politicians.
Through our blog sites, ‘Serbian Animals Voice’ https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/ and ‘World Animals Voice’ https://worldanimalsvoice.com/ , we aim to cover as many issues as we can in often, the harshest of blogs – with us, what you see is what you get; cruelty is cruelty and we will never disguise the daily system of abuse and suffering that many animals have to endure the world over.
On the other hand, we know that only if we all fight together against this ‘system’ of abuse, do we then have any chance of winning campaigns.
Looking back, we realize that all the best this year has already been achieved by many using this very same approach, because we participated in solidarity and cooperation in actions, that wanted to abolish the suffering and slavery of animals.
So we have to continue to move forward into next year: active, solidary, united!
Also in the New Year (of 2019) we will do a part in this fight with our two blogs. With information, education, criticism, and facts !
Stay true to us, we all remain faithful to the animals, and faithful to you, our dear campaigner friends !
What one alone does not achieve, many unite to create victories together. Be part of our team uniting in achieving victories !.
In this Sense and with this hope, we wish you all a healthy and happy new year of fighting for the voiceless in 2019.
Best wishes – Venus and Mark.
Here is a message from Erika at Animal Aid Unlimited that shows this exactly:
In the name of the thousand animals that are no longer transported over the sea painfully, Thank you Lyn White. Thank you for your strength, your perseverance and your tireless struggle!
“Sheep trade is finished…” Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 2018
Mark, this was a very welcome media headline to end what has been a huge year in our efforts to end live export. It refers to a new ‘heat stress assessment model’ which would effectively stop sheep exports for half the year, presenting another huge blow to the future viability of the trade.
So much has happened this year. And with politicians heading home for the summer break, and with four live export bills yet to be voted on — I thought you may be wondering, what now?
The short answer is that politicians have 13 more chances over 13 parliamentary sitting days to bring on a vote to end live sheep exports. If they don’t, then the Australian people get to make the decision for them at the next Federal election. And, as you know, for the first time in our history there is a point of difference on this issue between the two major parties.
Let’s pause for a moment to take that in.
After 50 years of condemning animals to unconscionable cruelty — after half a century of thinking their secrets would stay hidden at sea — the live sheep export industry’s days are well and truly numbered.
They’re numbered because compassionate and determined people like you, Mark, have refused to stay silent. Because, day and night, for eight months, you have answered our call for help every time we found a strategic opportunity to fuel this campaign for the animals onwards.
Now, as a result of our collective efforts, live exporters no longer enjoy majority political support. Two additional live export bills were introduced to the Federal Parliament during the final parliamentary sitting week, sending a striking message from a powerful new cross-bench straight to the Morrison government that this issue is more palpable than ever, and will not go away.
South Australian MP Rebekah Sharkie cited that she gets dozens of emails every single day calling for live export to end. The new Independent member for Wentworth, Dr Kerryn Phelps, said her electors made it clear during the by-election that they will no longer tolerate the trade. And long-time friend of the animals, Andrew Wilkie, reminded his fellow parliamentarians that every poll ever conducted has made Australia’s opposition to this cruellest of trades clear.
These are your voices, your emails, your phone calls, your letters, being echoed by your political representatives.
Mark, I would have loved nothing more than to head into Christmas with a parliamentary decision to end the trade. However, after 15 years investigating and exposing the horrors this industry inflicts on animals, I can wait a few more months. After all, it’s already been a year of truly milestone moments:
More than 500,000 sheep were spared from ‘cooking alive’ at sea during the deadliest Northern summer months.
Australia’s biggest sheep exporter — the company exposed on 60 Minutes — was banned from operating, permanently.
We hauled the live trade before the Federal Court, and won, and now the regulator remains under investigation for covering up cruelty.
New standards being forced on the industry will effectively end shipments during the hottest months, and impact the commercial viability of all export voyages — for both sheep and cattle.
So fearful is the industry of a pending political vote that they ‘voluntarily’ committed to stop shipments across the sweltering June to August period next year. And now, this ‘heat stress’ review will likely mean there will be no sheep shipments for 6 months next year.
So, while the year is rapidly drawing to a close, 2018 will be remembered as the year Australia’s cruellest trade began to unravel. Mark, with your help, we are determined to ensure that 2019 will be commemorated as the year Australians voted to bring it to an end.
Millions of animals are transported across Europe every year, to North Africa and the Middle East. Main customers for German and EU cattle for years are third countries such as Lebanon, Libya and Egypt, but also Turkey.
In 2018, Germany granted import licenses for half a million cattle from the European Union.
The transport of animals is a profitable business, because the tariffs for meat, for example, in Turkey are much higher than those for live animals. But the cattle are often penned for days or weeks on trucks and ships or have to endure at much too high heat without water at the border crossings. Even small calves are transported over 3000 kilometers. Arriving at their destination, the animals await a torturous end in the slaughterhouses of third countries.
Tormenting on livestock freighters
Animal rights activists raise the alarm: NO ONE cares about the law any more, as soon as our animals leave the EU, they say. They report, for example, on thirsty cattle at the Turkish border crossing, on unspeakable torture on old livestock freighters, and on their arrival in the Middle East and North Africa.
The fact that animal transport is often not complied with EU standards over a long distance was demonstrated by the ZDF (second german television program) with the film from Manfred Karremann “Geheimsache Tiertransport” (“Secret thing animal transport”)in November 2017, which brought the grievances into the consciousness of the general public again. In the meantime, politics has also recognized the need for action.
Members of the European Parliament from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands had taken a picture of animal transports in July 2018 and documented violations of the EU Animal Transport Directive.
After broadcasting these unbearable pictures of the cattle export to third countries in the TV on 2017, green agriculture spokesman Friedrich Ostendorffattacks the Federal Government sharply. These “scandalous animal transport conditions” have been known to the government for years. Only last winter, the Green parliamentary group has submitted an application to the Bundestag with the aim of improving the conditions for the animals and to limit the transport.
“But instead of supporting this initiative, the federal government relied on increasing exports with devastating effects: the number of long-distance transports of cattle exploded in Schmidt’s (Former agrarian minister of Germany) term;They were tripled to Lebanon and more than tenfold to Turkey and Russia, “said Ostendorff.
Although all experts have called for greater control of animal transports to third countries, the Agriculture Committee of the federal daily, end of September 2018 with the voices of the Christian Democratic Union / Christian Conservatives, the Social Democratic Party and the right populist party, rejected the request.
No control of transport outside the EU
Just recently, one million protest signatures were handed over to the European Commission in Brussels. The background: The European Court of Justice has ruled that the welfare of the animals must be guaranteed to the last destination.But nobody controls the transports once they have left the EU. This is also confirmed by the doku film from author Manfred Karremann, “37 degrees” . Shortly after the EU’s external borders, he encounters thirsty cattle, as well as breeding cows, who give birth to the truck and die.
Manfred Karremann wanted to know: Are the pictures of animal suffering exceptions? Or is a law systematically abused? In a several-month, investigative research that has led him from German farms to Bulgaria and Turkey to Lebanon, he pursues this question. With a terrifying result. “37 degrees” shows the result.
Manfred Karremann about the movie
“The scream from the slaughterhouse” was my first movie in 1989. During the filming I saw how miserable cattle and pigs have just arrived at slaughterhouses after a transport through Germany. That was the reason to take a closer look at the international animal transports.
This is a section from the film by Manfred Karremann and I have deliberately attached, because there is the possibility of an English translation in subtitles here.
Many films were made in the episode. They look like one, because some pictures are similar in a frightening way: “Then the picture of the hanging cow, which is already fifteen years old, will surely come again”, an exporter told me recently about the current film. In fact, but there were many different ships and each time other cattle, which were unloaded at winches and cranes of ships. The current film deals with the question: What does animals expect once they have left Germany or the EU?
the whole film from Manfred Karremann
Annotation: This Video is unfortunately in German without the possibility of an English translation with subtitles. At least I could not find an English version.
The following is a relevant video for animal transport abroad
Hell’s torments: Animal transport by ship (Video aus VGT (Association against animal factories, in Austria)
(The video material was shot by Animals International in 2016)
The text translation of the video is mine:
Every year millions of live animals are exported from the EU. Among other things, they are sent to Turkey and the Middle East or to North Africa
The animals travel for hours in transports, loading the ships takes several days
Punches and electric drivers are the order of the day. On the ships, the animals are poorly cared for. It is very tight and hot.
Even small calves are exported to thousands.
After days on the ships, the animals are completely dirty.They are transported on inappropriate transports.
Some are already dying on the way. The local conditions are terrible. Most of the exported animals are killed soon.
Even in larger slaughterhouses, the animals are killed without anesthesia.
European agriculture DOES NOT CARE about the fate of exported animals
My comment: Today, I read to a web page, what the head of Vegetarian Federation Germany, Proveg, said: “Our goal is to halve the meat consumption in the world by 2040.”
Maybe the Mister is one who believes in Santa, and Christmas is coming soon too.
The European Commission is going to evaluate its animal welfare strategy, it has said in response to a report by the European Court of Auditors published on Wednesday (14 November).
The review of the strategy comes almost three years after the European Parliament asked for it.
The auditors said in their report that animal welfare in the EU has improved, but that member states were slow to implement recommendations from the commission.
One example of slow implementation was found in France.
In 2010, the EU commission had recommended that French inspectors use better equipment to check conditions of animals’ environment on farms and during transport.
According to French legal requirements already in place since 2000, inspectors were supposed to have specialised equipment to make measurements.
“The French authorities had not, however, procured all the required equipment by the time of our audit,” the auditors wrote.
“During our visit to a laying hens farm certified as free-range, where the presence of ammonia inside the building was evident, the French inspector did not have the necessary equipment to measure the level of gas concentration. The inspector noted in the inspection report that the related requirement had been met,” they added.
Following the auditors’ visit, French authorities told the EU commission in spring 2018 that they had bought measurement equipment.
“However, inspectors were only asked to use this on farms raising chickens for meat,” the report said.
Meanwhile, Romania had been told several times between 2009 and 2011 that it needed to have legal sanctions in place for those who broke EU animal welfare rules.
“At the time of our audit, the Romanian authorities had not yet approved the necessary changes in the legislation to apply such sanctions,” said the report.
Above – A Calf peers out of a veal crate which should have been banned in the EU 6 years earlier !!
A review, finally
The EU’s animal welfare strategy was published in 2012, and was specifically designed for the period 2012-2015.
However, some of the proposed measures were delayed until after 2015, and the commission has not published a new strategy paper since.
On 26 November 2015, the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution urging the commission “to evaluate the existing strategy and to draw up a new and ambitious strategy for the protection and welfare of animals for the 2016-2020 period in order to build on the work of the previous strategy and ensure the continuation of a framework for delivering high animal welfare standards across the member states”.
In March 2016, a group of northern and western European ministers also called for new rules to improve animal welfare standards.
The European Court of Auditors said in a report out on Wednesday that the commission had not assessed if the strategy had achieved its goals.
“There are no baseline indicators or target indicators to measure how far the strategy objectives have been achieved and the commission had not yet evaluated the results of its actions as requested by the European parliament,” said the report.
In response, the commission acknowledged that, and said that it planned to perform an evaluation of the strategy.
“Its actions have not yet been evaluated since they were completed only by early 2018, and therefore, the impact of all actions has not yet materialised,” the commission said.
Improvements, but slowly
The report stated that there were “still some significant discrepancies between the animal welfare standards established in the EU legislation and the reality on the ground”.
They audited the situation in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Romania.
“The member states visited generally followed the European Commission’s recommendations, sometimes took a long time to address them,” auditor Janusz Wojchiechowski told journalists in a briefing on Tuesday.
He did not want to say whether the commission should introduce a new animal welfare strategy.
“This is not our role, to suggest or recommend to have a new strategy,” he noted.
The report stated that some of the measures announced in the 2012 strategy, like the publication of EU guidelines on the protection of animals during transport had been delayed by up to five years.
Below – Live exports of animals from the UK to France by Dutch convicted criminals !
Above – Germany – A piglet is castrated without any veterinary involvement or use of medication.
“The guidelines on pig welfare and on the protection of animals at slaughter were also delayed due to lengthy discussions with stakeholders,” the report said.
“Most reports were based on external studies, which were sometimes delayed due to lack of staff at the commission to manage the procurement process and review draft content,” it continued.
Further reading of our posts relating to EU lack of involvement for EU animal welfare issues:
World Animals Voice 