Activists Descend On Benetton Headquarters To Protest Cruelly Obtained Wool

PETA Wants Benetton to Honour Australian Wool Boycott Until Lamb Mutilations, Live Sheep Exports Are Ended

For Immediate Release:
23 March 2005

Contact:
Jodi Ruckley + 44 (0) 20 7357 9229, ext. 234

Treviso — Activists from all over Europe will arrive in sleepy Treviso next week as part of an international day of action against Benetton over the company’s use of cruelly obtained Australian wool. The protesters will confront employees at Benetton’s headquarters before moving to Benetton’s merchandise warehouse, where they will re-enact a gruesome Australian procedure called “mulesing” (live flaying of sheep). The activists will then converge in the Town Centre outside Benetton’s flagship store to show the public a bloody and sickening video entitled “United Cruelty of Benetton” on body screen TVs and hand out leaflets encouraging shoppers to stay out of Benetton stores:

Date: Tuesday, March 29
Time: 8 a.m. sharp
Place: Benetton Group Headquarters, Villa Minelli Ponzano Treviso

Time: 11:30 a.m. sharp
Place: Benetton Industrial Complex, Via Postioma, 64B Castrette di Villorba

Time: 3 p.m. sharp
Place: Benetton, Piazza Indipendenza 5 Treviso

Mulesing is a painful mutilation in which Australian farmers use gardening shears to cut skin and flesh from lambs’ backsides – without painkillers – even though humane control methods exist. When their wool is no longer needed, millions of sheep are shipped to the Middle East through all weather extremes, mired in their own waste aboard open-deck ships. When they reach the Middle East, the survivors have their throats slit while they are fully conscious.

After a year of attempted negotiations with the Australian government to eliminate these atrocities, PETA US declared an international boycott of Australian wool in October 2004 and has already won the positive response of prestigious retailers Abercrombie & Fitch and U.K.-based New Look and George. Benetton, however, has failed to take action to stop the worst abuses of the sheep used for its garments.

“The ‘united colours’ of Benetton are turning blood red”, says PETA Europe Director Dawn Carr. “If Benetton wants to wash the blood of millions of lambs off its hands, it must refuse to sell clothes made from Australian wool.”

For more information, please visit UnitedCrueltyOfBenetton.com.

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