Humane Education Trust has launched a campaign to pressure South Africa’s government to recognize the sentience of all animals.
The South African Animal Sentience Campaign has so far collected more than 1,700 signatures to a petition it plans to present to South Africa’s government. The campaign hopes to ultimately obtain 1 million signatures.
The petition reads,
Animals in South Africa are not recognized as sentient beings. This means they are classified as objects, and therefore have no rights. This exposes them to severe exploitation like painful laboratory testing and cruel factory farming practice.
We’re calling on South Africa to re-classify animals as sentient beings, thereby creating a platform for these ill-practices to be monitored and changed, creating a free, humane, and compassionate South Africa.
Well, since South Africa’s current government has embraced folks who believe that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, they might actually have a chance of putting this nonsense over on them as well.
Source:
Animal Sentience Campaign — South Africa. Humane Education Trust, August 2005.