Report of Irish Fur Farming Expose Launch Protest

national | animal rights | news report

Thursday February 19, 2009 20:09

by Laura Broxson - CAFT Ireland

PO Box 11019, Dublin 2

086 8729 444

Hi,

On, Tues. 17th February, almost 20 members of CAFT Ireland officially launched Ireland's newest expose of Irish fur farms, outside the Dept. of Agriculture - as they are responsible for licensing these death camps.

We set up a large visual display, with banners and placards - and members held our new graphic posters, with photos taken inside the fur farms. Many passers-by stopped to take leaflets and sign the petition, all of whom spoke of their full support of our campaign.

With two megaphones at full volume throughout the protest, it was very hard for the Dept. of Agriculture to ignore us! Even people from across the street had to stop and listen!

Before we finished the protest, we had a representative of the Department come out to us, so we could hand in our expose pack and petitions to Minister Brendan Smith.

Even though we had been advertising and publicising this for over a week, for some reason, we unfortunately didn't get any media coverage for the protest. But, we will be sending out additional press releases throughout the week.

Photos can be seen here (just scroll down to the first slideshow under "Upcoming Event"): http://www.naracampaigns.org

The official campaign video is also on our website, and is embedded below.

HISTORY OF THE CAMPAIGN:

As this country's leading anti-fur group, CAFT Ireland has been leafleting, and organising protests outside the Department of Agriculture every week for almost 3 years now.

Hundreds of thousands of leaflets have been handed out, and thousands of petitions have been collected.

Many shops and department stores have gone fur-free due to our sustained campaigns: http://www.naracampaigns.org/caftireland.html and http://www.naracampaigns.org/furcampaign.html

We do regular radio and press interviews on the issue, and get a huge amount of support for our campaign from the public.

WHAT NEXT:

This new expose has come at a perfect time, and we feel it has a great potential in helping us ban fur farming due to the documented evidence of breaches in welfare legislation.

We want as many people as possible to see this dvd, and will now be making them available to distribute at protests and information tables.

We will be sending official "Expose Packs" to various SPCA's around the country, as well as too TD's, government officials and the media. Should this prove unsuccessful, we will be seeking advice from a legal team on taking this further, thanks to a very kind member of our group.

In the coming weeks and months, we will also be organising more "Fur Farm Awareness Days", with protests outside the actual fur farms.

Finally, we would like to say a big 'thank you' to everyone who made yesterday's event a huge success. And if anyone would like more copies of the dvd, just let us know!

For the animals,

Laura Broxson

086 8729 444

CAFT Ireland / National Animal Rights Association