PETA And Förbundet Djurens Rätt Slaughter ‘Cow’In Stockholm

“Skinned” Bodies to Urge Shoppers to Reject Leather

For Immediate Release:
15 April 2005

Contact:
Poorva Joshipura +44 207 357 9229 Ext 229

Stockholm—In a busy city square this Monday, passers-by will witness an activist dressed as a butcher “kill” and “skin” a person dressed as a cow, revealing bloodied flesh. Dead, skinned and bloodied “carcasses” lying on the ground from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Förbundet Djurens Rätt will demonstrate how real cows and other real animals are treated before they are turned into leather shoes, bags and other products and to encourage shoppers to choose synthetic and natural fibre materials instead of animal skin.

Date:  Monday, April 18th
Time:  noon sharp
Location: Medborgarplatsen

What’s our beef with leather? Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses. The vast majority of animals used for their skin suffer all the horrors of factory farming-intense confinement, painful mutilations, deprivation, harmful hormone and antibiotic injections, and cruel treatment during transport and slaughter. Production-line speedups and inadequate stunning on European and North American kill floors mean that cows killed for their skins and flesh are often dismembered while still conscious. Much of the leather sold in Sweden comes from India, where even the most basic animal protection laws are ignored and from China, where laws to protect such animals do not even exist. Leather tanneries also wreak havoc on the environment, and their pollution has been linked to cancer, respiratory infections, and other illnesses.
 
“The blood used in our demonstration is fake, but the suffering and deaths of animals whose skins are used for leather is real,” says PETA UK campaigner, Poorva Joshipura. “These days it’s easy as pie to choose synthetics and other humane options that don’t contribute to cruelty to animals.”

Synthetic leather and other animal-friendly options are available at just about any major shoe and clothing shop including Wedins, Skopunkten and Din Sko.

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

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