Photos: Nearly Naked Model Leads Protest Against Russia’s ‘Monkey on Mars’ Mission

For Immediate Release:

13 January 2016

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

PHOTOS: NEARLY NAKED MODEL LEADS PROTEST AGAINST RUSSIA’S ‘MONKEY ON MARS’ MISSION

At Russian Embassy in London PETA Members Gather With ‘Bleeding Space Monkey’ to Urge Space Agency Not to Send Macaques To Mars

London – Bodypainted as a monkey and wearing a space helmet, a PETA supporter lay in a pool of “blood” outside the Russian Embassy today in protest of Russia’s plan to send four macaque monkeys to Mars in 2017. Next to a Russian flag proclaiming, “Monkeys on Mars: One Giant Leap Backwards for Mankind”, other protesters called on Russia to use exclusively high-tech, 21st century space-exploration methods in its space programme – not non-human primates.

Photos from the protest are available here, here and here.

More images from the demonstration available on Rex Features.

“If this experiment goes forward, Russia will return to the darkest days of the Space Race – a time when primates died horrifically from suffocation, overheating and impact”, says PETA Science Policy Advisor Dr Julia Baines. “PETA is calling on the Russian Federal Space Agency to put a stop to this ill-advised suicide mission and be a true pioneer in modern-day space exploration.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – has also sent a letter urging the Russian space agency to cancel the planned experiment and send the monkeys to a sanctuary where they can live out the rest of their lives in peace, not in space.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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