FUR FREE UK

We are calling on the British government to make it illegal to sell any type of real fur in the UK!

Please sign this petition to help put an end to the pain millions of animals are going through as we speak, and to help stop all decent humans from having to put up with the immoral minority that continue to wear fur! 

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/fur-free-uk

This year’s seal massacre was promised to be more humane said the Canadian government… They lied

“Canada’s seal hunt is humane, sustainable and responsible.” we were told….. They lied again.

Observing the seal “hunt” did get underway but by this time thousands of baby seals had been brutally murdered by being bludgeoned, shot, having their throats sliced open and bled to death or by being skinned alive.

Unjustifiably the Canadian government and The Department of Fisheries and Oceans do not release the specific coordinates of where the hunting is taking place, meaning long periods of searching for the sealing boats or blood stained ice flows in dangerous waters for those courageous enough to document this degrading act of human brutality.

Sealers have been continuously documented using violence and aggression towards The seals and those documenting their dreadful death.

One sealer was filmed writing in the snow with the blood from a dying seal, a message for the monitors filming from a helicopter above.

The message read - “FUCK OFF”.

The Seal was then put to death after suffering incredible pain whilst its murderer took his time.

The sealers have been filmed attacking monitors and journalists, ramming their cars and smashing their boats.

Despite this the sealers are being protected by the “Seal Protection Regulations” which make it an offence to witness a seal being murdered without a permit! You will face being arrested, jailed for up to 1 year and/ or fined up to $100,000. So just to reiterate, that’s you being put in jail and/ or fined for being so unfortunate enough as to witness a grown man beat a defenceless seal to death!

So when 4 sealers died in an accident when their boat, the L'Acadien II, capsized while being towed behind a Canadian “icebreaker“ ship, it can be seen as a small piece of justice for the thousands of seals that have already died this year!

15 other ships that had left for the 2008 seal hunt with the L'Acadien II called off the hunt for almost one week out of solidarity for the dead. Returning to their murderous work the next week.

This time of the year Harp seals give birth out on the ice flows of Canada so that their pups can feed and learn to swim for the first time in reasonable safety.

The Canadian government will continue in their attempt to justify the seal hunt by stating that “Canada's seal hunt is humane, sustainable and responsible” they also attempt to tell the world that the seals killed are adults and not babies despite the fact that: Over 95% of Seals Killed are under 3 months old! And the expected price for the best seal pelts in 2008 is only $33 compared to $62 in 2007 and $105 in 2006.

This decrease in price has influenced many sealers to abandon the hunt.

More than 3,500 businesses have pledged to avoid Canadian seafood for as long as the commercial seal hunt continues, providing a strong economic incentive for the Canadian government to stop it.

Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Panama, Mexico, and America have all banned the sale of seal products!

Captain Paul Watson founder of Sea Shepherd organisation told CTV News that Sea Shepherd has footage of seals screaming while being skinned alive that will be used to help end the hunt.

Sea Shepherd have witnessed the most brutal way the sealers have killed the baby harp seals. They have seen the sealers walk right up to a baby harp seal sitting with his mother and put a hakakpik through the babies skull, causing unimaginable pain and dragging this poor baby along the ice to be skinned alive.
Apparently the babies mothers try and nurse the dead bodies and cry for days over their lose.

“We haven't seen any evidence of a humane hunt here,” Mr. Watson said. “We're presenting this evidence to the European Parliament. They are going to pass a bill to ban seal products. That will end the Canadian seal hunt. We're looking at the end of days for the seal hunt.”

For more information on Sea Shepherd and the shocking news of an assault on their crew and ship from the Canadian Sealers and even the Canadian cost guard, please visit - www.seashepherd.org

Those of you in England, PLEASE contact your MP and ask them to sign EDM 32 condemning Canada's seal hunt. To find out who your MP is, visit http://www.parliament.uk/directories/directories.cfm.

A new law is to be passed on December 2008 which will Ban the sale of Cat and Dog Fur from being sold within the EU, but this will not stretch to the other animals that suffer and die on Fur Farms around the world. 

It is VERY cruel and unfairly selective that Raccoon dogs, Coyotes, Foxes, Wolves and others from the Canidae (Dog) Family will not be spared from the HORRORS of the Fur industry whilst Dogs will be. And is equally as cruel and unfair for other members of the Felidae (Cat) family which have also not been spared.

Though it is a very positive move it is surely not justifiable to ONLY ban the use of Cats and Dogs Fur being sold inside the EU. ALL animals suffer the same and ALL animals must be saved from death in the Fur industry.

There is fear that hundreds of French cats may have been stolen from their owners and taken across the border into Switzerland to be used in the “legal” Swiss trade in cat fur.   

Cat fur is used in Switzerland mostly as a fool’s hope of relieving pain from Rheumatism and the retailers selling the “cat blankets” have called the allegations “absurd”, insisting that the skins used are purchased in bulk from within Switzerland or from Britain and are from “wild felines”.

However Patricia Dolciani, head of the French Society for the Protection of Animals (SPA) in Thonon-les-Bains, in the Alps, says that her team has registered the disappearance of at least 550 cats in the region so far this year, more than double the number for the whole of 2006. “What really raised our suspicions was when people started ringing to say they had lost more than one cat. One person near Megève, for instance, lost three in a day.

Particia Dolciani is now calling on the gendar-merie (French military police force) to launch an investigation into the matter.

Tomi Tomek, the founder of SOS Chats, a Swiss cat-protection association has also been investigating and has contacted a tannery pretending to be a customer. She was told by the owner that they had about 100 furs in stock which supposedly come from cats that are hunted in the wild but “If that’s the case, where were the bullet holes?” asks Tomek.

SOS Chats (SOS Cats) have also handed a petition calling for a ban on the export and trade of cat skins to the Swiss parliament. The petition collected nearly 120,000 signatures in less than six months including those from Michael Schumacher, long-time animal rights advocate Brigitte Bardot and former Miss Switzerland Lauriane Gilliéron.

The group has support for a ban from cabinet ministers and members of parliament but an outright ban on the use of cat fur has yet to be decided.

Currently, Switzerland bans the import of cat furs, but allows domestic production and sale (Under Swiss law, it is permitted to kill stray cats and sell their fur to tanneries.) even though it is a trade banned throughout the European Union.

GRUPPO COIN has finally sent a written statement to AIP Campaign, stating

they will adopt a fur-free policy for their company. The fur-free policy

will be also listed in their ethical code visible on the website, along

with other issues like  workers' rights and child labour.

Gruppo Coin is the biggest clothing retailer in Italy, with more than 4%

of the market. They own 3 brands of department stores, for a total of 415

shops.

-Oviesse, the biggest clothing chain in Italy, has got 350 stores and will

be fur-free with immediate effect.

-Coin, a quite posh department store with 60 shops, where a lot of famous

brands and designers have concessions or shop-in-shops, will take more

time to be completely fur-free since they have already bought next year's

collections and have contracts with suppliers.

-Yo-Vi, a children fashion shop chain, will follow the same path of Coin.

The campaign against Coin stores, where the company didn't want to adopt a

fur-free policy, has started in October 2007, after negotiations didn't

bring wanted results.

In two and half months of campaign there have been 80 demos, 1 civil

disobedience action and 2 direct attacks at Coin stores. The company said

they wanted to stop all of this and asked for a meeting where a fur-free

policy was confirmed to come in full effect also in Coin stores and

regarding external suppliers and shop-in-shops.

After La Rinascente, Upim, Coin and Oviesse going fur-free there is no

more department stores selling fur in Italy and a big portion of the

market has been made fur-free.

For more infos: www.campagnaaip.net (in italian)