AR-News: Austria: hot battery hen campaign news

[Andrew Knight]

news from Austria   Dr Martin Ballach heads this amazing campaign (pics of
austrian rescues on www.openrescue.org )

 

> The situation we face here is that the public and 3 of 4 parliamentary 
> parties support a battery farm ban. The fourth party, the conservatives, 
> in government, want to defend battery farming to the end. Is it 
> possible, if we put all energy and imagination into it, to exert so much 
> pressure onto an unwilling government, to ban an industry under these 
> circumstances, which is in itself quite powerful and big. Time will tell.
> 
> The date for the parliamentary-debate of the battery farm ban has been 
> moved from the 20th to the 27th of April, i.e. next Tuesday. The 
> Conservative Party delegation has agreed to meet me 15 minutes before 
> the debate to be handed over all the petitions we have collected since 
> beginning of March (which are 5000). We have a little surprise for them 
> then. In any case, here is what happened between 14th April and today.
> 
> 1) On 15th April, a weekly magazine published a debate between me and 
> the agricultural minister, albeit this debate was only done on the 
> phone, arranged by the journalist. I critisized the law, he only wanted 
> to brand me and animal rights as radical.
> 
> 2) On 15th April also, the by far biggest weekly magazine in Austria 
> arranged a debate between the head of the government comission on the 
> animal issue, the battery farmer of Austria's largest battery farm 
> (450.000 hens), the agricultural minister and me, believe it or not. The 
> comission spokeswoman critisized the government but was very held back 
> in her arguments. The battery farmer was shocked to see me on the table 
> and said I belong in prison and not here. He would have refused to come 
> had he known I was here, he said. He claimed to love his birds and that 
> his way of keeping them is in their best interest. The minister doubted 
> that I as a vegan are in a position to debate the keeping of farm 
> animals. He said consumers should decide, not the law. I said that only 
> vegans can really represent the animals' interests, because only they 
> have not their own interests in the animals, i.e. they do not suffer a 
> collision of interests between theirs and those of the animals. We had 
> broken into 5 battery farms owned by the battery farmer on the table and 
> had brought him to court, in answer he had brought charges against me, 
> so the two of us were not too friendly with each other. But eventually, 
> it became a hot debate between the minister and me on battery farming. 
> The whole thing lasted 2 hours and was supposed to be published 
> yesterday, but was delayed for a week. I hope its not the Conservatives 
> succeeding in trying to hinder it.
> 
> 3) Today, just now, we have our 54th demo for a battery farm ban since 
> 21st February, when we started with the demo campaign. In our latest 
> siege of the ministry of agriculture on Wednesday 21st, the minister 
> actually came out and confronted the activists. He claims we should not 
> protest outside his ministry, as he is not in the position to ban 
> battery farming, only the government can do that.
> 
> 4) The flyposting is running on a high. So far, 1500 placards have been 
> put up everywhere. 2 people have been arrested while flyposting, quite a 
> new police tactic. It has not been known that ever anybody has been 
> arrested for such an offence. Also, as there are presidential elections 
> this Sunday, the Conservatives have started paying watch groups to guard 
> their placards and chase activists putting up anti-conservative posters. 
> A number of confrontations were had, but all went ok, i.e. so far all 
> activists escaped unharmed.
> 
> 5) For the presidential elections, we had asked all candidates on their 
> opinion on battery farming and the animal issue. The conservative 
> candidate was the only one trying to evade anwering our questions. She 
> said she finds the law as it is sufficient. We put as much energy as 
> possible into spreading this view, through demos and posters and 
> leafletting etc. She reacted last Sunday 19th by putting out a press 
> release saying that the law, indeed, should be tightened. Obviously she 
> feels the pressure, although she did not want to say exactly in which 
> way the law should be tightened. Yesterday, activists tried to disrupt 
> her last public rally before the elections tomorrow. Police intervened, 
> but some disruption was achieved and our banners were visible to 
> everybody. Lets hope she is not our new president after this Sunday.
> 
> 6) But yesterday we succeeded in our biggest coup as yet. On Thursday, 
> the agricultural chamber had organized a visit with experts to the first 
> Austrian battery farm with enriched cages. Their press release said how 
> wonderful this farm is, and what a compromise, with happy healthy birds. 
> As it happened, in the night after this visit, and BEFORE their press 
> release went out, activists visited the very same farm in the night and 
> got good footage of fotos and videos of the farm and its awful 
> conditions, of dead rotting birds in the cages and of birds without 
> feathers. So, we were in the position to counter their PA immediately 
> with our own PA that showed pictures of the very same farm which were 
> only 5 hours old!! They must have been steaming, as well as wondering 
> where in their midst the whistle blower might be!!
> 
> 7) In preparing new actions, I have spoken to journalists from state TV. 
> They told me that our campaign is a big issue in the internal media 
> world and they admire us for how much pressure we have managed to 
> create. Nice to hear.
> 
> 8) I have managed to persuade all big Austrian national animal welfare 
> and animal rights groups to pay together an advert, which is an appeal 
> to the prime minister to ban battery farming, signed by 50 prominent 
> Austrians from arts and science. On next Tuesday, the day of the 
> parliamentary debate, this advert will be published half page in the 
> conservative daily newspaper. If it is perceived well, I might get the 
> groups to finance publishing the same advert in a number of other 
> newspapers, especially since many newspapers drop costs by more than 50% 
> and up to 100%.

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