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Wearing prisoner uniforms and dog, rabbit and rat masks, a US-based animal rights activists today held a demonstration outside the Indian embassy here protesting against Air India's recent decision to transport animals to laboratories.
"Air India's repeated assurances that it will refuse to transport animals to laboratories apparently meant nothing - the airline has gone right back to shipping animals to their deaths," said PETA senior vice president of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo."Air India officials are every bit as guilty of the pain, suffering, and death that these animals are subjected to as the experimenters who wield the poisons and scalpels," said Guillermo.
Wearing prisoner uniforms and dog, rabbit, and rat masks; crouching in stacked cages; and holding signs that read, 'Air India Ships Animals to Deadly Experiments', six PETA members pleaded for animals' lives outside the Indian mission.
The action was in protest of Air India's about-face on its ban on transporting animals to laboratories, where they are caged, cut into, poisoned, and killed, a media statement said.
This marks the first action that PETA has taken against Air India. PETA India has been campaigning against the airline since it lifted its ban.
Many of the largest and most well-known carriers in the world, including US Airways, Virgin Airlines, JetBlue, Hawaiian Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air, EVA Air, FedEx, and UPS, prohibit shipping animals to laboratories.
Jet Airways, India's second-largest airline, also recently committed to a ban on transporting animals slated for experimentation, PETA said.
