Dozens of animal rights activists are expected to descend on Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Thursday, to protest against animal cruelty.

The protest, which marks World Vegan Day, was organized by a group of vegan and animal rights activists who plan on tattooing their arms with the number 269 -- a number that is branded into calves -- as a sign that they identify with the suffering of livestock.

More than 100 people have said they would attend the event, which its organizer, Tal Gilboa, hopes will make a lot of noise.

This is not the first time the 269 group has organized a public display to walk the talk against animal cruelty. On October 2, World Farm Animals Day, members of the group put on a public display at Rabin Square in which they pretended they were farm animals and had other activists drag them -- nearly naked -- through cages, and branded their bodies with the number 269 using a white-hot branding iron. The activists hoped that by identifying with one calf, they could materialize the pain that animals suffer on a daily basis.

--
full story:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-vegan-activists-to-protest-animal-holocaust-by-tattooing-livestock-numbers.premium-1.473764