February 24, 2012

Re: Self-Proclaimed Animal-Welfare Activist in Ohio (Allegedly) Tried to Hire Someone to Kill Fur-Wearer

North American Animal Liberation Press Office Statement

In a widely reported story in the mainstream media, an animal rights activist in Ohio has been charged with soliciting a hit man to fatally shoot or slit the throat of a random fur-wearer. Meredith Lowell, 27, appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland where a judge ordered her held by the U.S. Marshals Service pending a hearing next week, court records show.

Those who battle animal torture, exemplified in the horrific killing of fur-bearing animals for their skin, have been not-unexpectedly silent on the arrest. The North American Animal Liberation Press Office, in its long-running mission to expose animal cruelty and exploitation wherever it exists, has the following comments.

It is easy to understand and empathize with the actions of a woman who may have watched one of the many undercover video's of fur-bearing animals on fur farms. Video footage highlights innocent, sentient wild animals kept in such close confinement they go mad, turning around in their small cages continuously and chewing their appendages off from the stress. Subsequently, they are forcibly taken and systematically gassed or clubbed to death or alternatively, anally electrocuted while alive (the current trend on fur farms in order to prevent the animal from getting blood or vomiting all over their fur.)

Who could, under a similar set of circumstances, fault an individual that viewed a video of children, who have no power and can't speak for themselves, being raped, and the person watching becoming so emotionally distraught, that in their distress they seek someone to kill the child rapist?

Authorities are undoubtedly exploiting Lowell and using her as an example of why "animal terrorists" should be locked up and the key thrown away. Lowell's choice in using Facebook and potentially targeting children was certainly misguided, and perhaps there is more to her mental state than just overwhelming distress and compassion for innocent animals being unnecessarily murdered for their skins. Regardless, she has managed to shine the spotlight on the manifest cruelty of the fur trade in "modern" America.

While the current case is deficient of a more solid and strategic ideological underpinning for the alleged actions, it is nevertheless understandable from the viewpoint of those with compassion for the oppressed. Perhaps the stress and emotional duress can account for the accused' inability to act with any true agency.

Once the horror of fur-bearing animal enslavement, abuse and murder is witnessed with one's own eyes, the animals' screams and their writhing pain visualized, most people refuse to wear the skins of these animals on their backs as a fashion statement, and some are driven to undertake more extreme measures to end the sadistic practice.

Sad to be sure, but nonetheless true.