PETA ‘Animals’ To Air India: Stop Shipping Us To Our Deaths In Laboratories

For Immediate Release:

30 May 2013

Contact:

Ben Williamson +44 (0)20 7837 6327, ext 229; [email protected]

Photos of the event are available here, here and here. Images are also available from Associated Press and Universal Pictorial Press Agency.

London – Wearing jumpsuits and dog masks while holding signs that read, “Air India: Cruelty Shouldn’t Fly”, PETA supporters made a plea for animals’ lives outside the High Commission of India in London this morning. The action was in protest of Air India’s about-face on its ban on transporting animals to laboratories, where they are caged, cut into, poisoned and killed. This protest marks PETA’s first action taken against Air India in the UK. PETA India has been campaigning against the airline since it lifted its ban.

“Air India’s repeated assurances that it will refuse to transport animals to laboratories apparently meant nothing – the airline has gone right back to shipping animals to their deaths”, says PETA’s Kirsty Henderson. “Air India officials are every bit as guilty of the pain, suffering and death that these animals are subjected to as the experimenters who wield the poisons and scalpels.”

Many of the largest and most well-known carriers in the world, including Cathay Pacific, EVA Air, FedEx, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue, Korean Air, UPS, US Airways and Virgin Airlines, prohibit shipping animals to laboratories. Jet Airways, India’s second-largest airline, also recently committed to a ban on transporting animals slated for experimentation.

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