From: Gillian Russell [mailto:jillrussell777@
btinternet. com]
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 10:51 AM
To:
jillrussell777@ btinternet. com
Subject: Fw: Beginning of the end of
animal circuses in Portugal - Please take action to support new already
applicable ban on wild animals in circuses in Portugal
Subject:
Beginning of the end of animal circuses in Portugal - Please take action to
support new already applicable ban on wild animals in circuses in Portugal
14 October, 2009
Government established laws in Portugal which immediately
ban the use of great apes in circuses and lay grounds for the end of the use
of wild animals in circuses -- Please congratulate the Portuguese Government
for taking this step and please ask the European Commission to support the
EU member states, such as Portugal and Austria, which took measures to end
the use of animals in circuses and also to have the EU following their
example
Following years of education, awareness-raising, campaigning
and lobbying work carried out by ANIMAL, it finally happened. Since
September 3rd, based on a new law-decree established by the Portuguese
Government, circuses operating in Portugal can no longer keep or use great
apes -- chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos. The use of these
animals is also forbidden in any other spectacles.
As from
yesterday, another legislative decision of the Portuguese Government went
further: it banned the keeping and use of wild animals in circuses, such as
elephants, rhinos, hippos, lions, tigers, bears, primates, reptiles,
ostriches, among others. However, there is a regrettable exception: the wild
animals that the Portuguese circuses already legally held when this new bill
came into force (yesterday) will still be allowed to be kept and used in
circus shows, but the circus companies are now legally forced to prevent
those animals from breeding and can no longer acquire any new wild animals.
The circuses have, as from yesterday, 90 days to register all their wild
animals with the Portuguese CITES authority -- and those will be the only
wild animals that they will ever again be allowed to keep and use. This new
bill means that the renovation of the populations of animals kept and used
in Portuguese circuses is banned.
While Portuguese circuses are now
extremely nervous, saying that this means the end of circuses, and have
joined the European Circus Association in making preparations to file a law
suit with the European Commission against the Portuguese State, alleging
that this new law infringes the article 49 of the European Treaty,
supposedly violating the free internal market of the EU, ANIMAL has
congratulated the Portuguese Government for taking these measures and has
only regretted that these will not affect the wild animals (aside from the
great apes) which are already kept in circuses and it has also regretted
that these legislative measures leave domesticated animals away from its
application. That is why ANIMAL will continue to call the Portuguese
Parliament to take these measures one step further, by totally and
immediately banning the keeping and use of both wild and domesticated
animals in circuses.
In the meanwhile, ANIMAL needs your help to
ensure that, now that the Portuguese and European circus lobby will react
against this with everything it has, the Portuguese Government will stand by
these legislative measures and that the European Commission will not only
respect the Portuguese State decision of outlawing the keeping and use of
wild animals in circuses, but will also recognize it as a good example for
the EU to follow, along with the one that Austria had already established
when it banned the keeping and use of wild animals in circuses:
*
Please send the suggested message below -- or write your own message, if you
prefer -- to the President of the European Commission and to the European
Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, urging them to respect,
support and recognize as positive and a good example for the EU to follow
the legislative measures took by the Portuguese Government. Please copy
Portugal--s Prime Minister, the Minister of the Environment and the President
of the Portuguese CITES Authority into the message, so that they know that
you are supporting the steps that they took to end the use of wild animals
in circuses. Please send your message to: <http://uk.mc862.
mail.yahoo. com/mc/compose? to=Jose-Manuel. BARROSO@cec. eu.int>
Jose-Manuel. BARROSO@cec. eu.int; <http://uk.mc862.
mail.yahoo. com/mc/compose? to=Charlie. Mc-Creevy@ cec.eu.int>
Charlie.Mc-Creevy@ cec.eu.int; Copying (Cc) <http://uk.mc862.
mail.yahoo. com/mc/compose? to=pm@pm. gov.pt>
pm@pm.gov.pt; <http://uk.mc862.
mail.yahoo. com/mc/compose? to=gmaotdr@ maotdr.gov. pt>
gmaotdr@maotdr. gov.pt; <http://uk.mc862.
mail.yahoo. com/mc/compose? to=icnb@icnb. pt>
icnb@icnb.pt; <http://uk.mc862.
mail.yahoo. com/mc/compose? to=campanhas@ animal.org. pt>
campanhas@animal. org.pt, into the message.
* ANIMAL also needs
another type of help from you to be able to carry on campaigning to abolish
animal circuses and bullfighting and to forward animal protection in
Portugal with your support -- Please make as generous a donation as you can
TODAY to help ANIMAL: Use PayPal to make a safe and easy internet payment--
please go to http://www.PayPal. com/
and make a donation to <http://uk.mc862.
mail.yahoo. com/mc/compose? to=info@animal. org.pt>
info@animal. org.pt | Or make a bank transfer to the following account:
ANIMAL -- Associa----o Nortenha de Interven----o no Mundo AnimaL -- Montepio Geral
(Caixa Econ--mica) -- IBAN: PT50 0036 0093 9910 0034 4746 9 -- BIC/SWIFT:
MPIOPTPL | Or make a regular donation by cheque or money order and posting
it to us at: ANIMAL, Apartado 24140, 1251-997 Lisboa, Portugal.
Suggested Message
Dear Mr. President of the European Commission Jos--
Manuel Barroso
Dear Commissioner McCreevy, European Commissioner for
the Internal Market and Services
CC to:
The Prime-Minister of
Portugal, Mr. Jos-- S--crates
The Minister of Environment of Portugal, Mr.
Francisco Nunes Correia
The President of the ICNB Portugal CITES
Authority, Mr. Tito Rosa
Excellencies,
I am writing this
message to express my fullest support to the Portuguese Government new
enacted laws which immediately ban the keeping and use of great apes in
circuses and which immediately ban the breeding and acquisition of new wild
animals by circus companies operating in Portugal, allowing them only to
keep the wild animals that they already lawfully held at the time of the
coming into force of such laws. In fact, to be more accurate, I deeply
regret that the Portuguese Government did not go further, banning the
keeping and use of the very wild animals that circuses in Portugal already
hold, as well as the keeping and use of domesticated animals, which also
suffer tremendously in circuses and should not be kept or used in such
deplorable spectacles. However, I look at these legislative measures of the
Portuguese Government as very positive and praiseworthy signs of concern for
the plight of animals used in circuses, particularly of wild animals, and so
I wish to express my gratitude for the taking of such legislative steps.
I have in the meanwhile learned that, as they have done when Austria
courageously banned the keeping and use of wild animals in circuses, the
European Circus Association (ECA), which represents the circus lobby in the
EU, has threatened to take legal action against the Portuguese State for
outlawing the keeping and use of wild animals in circuses in the terms above
mentioned. The ECA argues, once again, as it has done with the Austrian
case, that such a ban infringes the article 49 of the European Treaty,
supposedly violating the rules of the free common market. However, I believe
it does not, as no circus is banned from performing in Austria or in
Portugal -- they are only banned from using great apes and from breeding or
acquiring by other means new wild animals, in Portugal, and from using wild
animals in Austria, but circuses are free -- and, furthermore, encouraged --
to perform with human artists -- who, unlike animals, perform willingly --
wherever they want in the EU. No animal protection organisation, and
certainly not the Portuguese Government or the Austrian State, oppose or
seek to outlaw the circus activity as a whole -- the point is only to end
something that is objectively and necessarily cruel, wrong and a sad and
degrading anachronism: the bizarre, absurd and totally unethical use of
animals in circuses, where they should no longer be and where they should
never have been kept in the first place.
I therefore urge the
European Commission to stand by the legislative steps that both the
Portuguese and Austrian states have taken against the keeping and use of
wild animals in circuses and I furthermore urge the European Commission to,
together with the European Council and with the European Parliament, take a
joint legislative action to completely outlaw the keeping and use of both
wild and domesticated animals in circuses, while respecting and protecting
solely all the respectable and admirable circus arts which involve human
artists alone.
I also wish to reiterate my support to the Portuguese
and to the Austrian states for taking such steps to protect wild animals and
I can only urge them to extend these measures to domesticated animals as
well. Bolivia has banned the keeping and use of both wild and domesticated
animals, several states and municipalities in Brazil have done the same,
while Costa Rica, Croatia, Israel and Singapore have complete bans on the
use of wild animals in circuses. Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, India and
Sweden have banned the use of certain wild animal species in circuses, while
Belgium, Estonia, Hungary and Poland have also enforced some restrictions of
the use of wild animals in circuses. It is now time for the European Union
to take the lead in this matter by completely outlawing the keeping and use
of domesticated and wild animals in circuses. As an European citizen, I wish
no less than that in this field.
Looking forward for your reply
and thanking you in anticipation for your attention,
Yours,
respectfully,
[Name]
[City, Country]
[E-mail address]
<http://www.animal.
org.pt/index. php?option= com_content& task=view& id=122&Itemid= 40>
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