CAIRO: A leading animal rights group called on Wednesday for Egypt to halt its “cruel and extremely inhumane cull of the nation’s 250,000 pigs until “more humane guidelines are implemented.
Pigs are “being killed in extremely inhumane ways … We request that all slaughter be ceased until guidelines can be put in place to regulate the killing, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said in a letter to the Egyptian government.
Egypt earlier this month ordered the nation’s pigs slaughtered as part of swine flu measures, although the World Health Organization has said the drastic measure is not scientifically justified.
Although no case of A(H1N1) swine flu has yet been detected on its territory, Egypt is the only country in the world to have decided to kill all its pigs, estimated to have numbered around 250,000 before the cull began.
Other official estimates put the number at 150,000.
PETA said it spoke on behalf of “the millions of people around the world who are shocked and outraged by the cruel killing of pigs in Egypt after videos of the slaughter were uploaded to YouTube.
The videos showed gory images of pigs being beaten with iron bars, piglets being stabbed with kitchen knives and animals being kicked alive into bulldozer buckets.
The clip sparked horrified reactions from Muslims and from the Christian Copt community, who are the main rearers of pigs in Egypt as Muslims do not eat pork.
PETA called on the Egyptian authorities “to ensure that all pigs are stunned with a penetrating captive bolt gun – which renders animals unconscious – prior to slaughter.
On Monday Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif called upon those involved in the culling campaign to employ humane measures and refrain from the prevailing brutality.
The slaughter caused controversy from its start on May 3, when riot police clashed with stone-throwing pig farmers trying to prevent their animals from being taken away.
The authorities have said it will take six months to complete the slaughter and announced plans to import three machines to boost culling capacity to 3,000 animals a day. -AFP and additional reporting by Daily News Egypt
