17 October 2013 - Press Release
Won’t Russian animal trainers be punished for a brutal
beating of animals?
For over a year and a half VITA Animal
Rights Center was carrying out an investigation in one of the typical
Russian circuses - the Bolshoi Saint-Petersburg State Circus on
Fontanka. VITA’s co-operator has gotten a job in the circus as a
cleaner and has installed there hidden cameras which have recorded
terrible scenes of animals torture by five trainers - beating with
hands, with a metal stick and a whip, kicking, strangulation. The
trainers beating the animals on the video, are the Honored Artists
of Russia (one of them is a National Artist) who work in the different
Russian circuses and came to the indicated Circus during the concert
tour*.
On April 17, the World Circus Day on the basis of the captured
video VITA has published on YouTube a 11-minute video which has
made a great public impact and has hit at the interests of the circus
system (Russian State Circus Company):
Youtube
1: BEHIND THE CURTAINS -1. VITA Animal Rights Center accuses Honored
Artists of Russia of inhuman cruelty - Part 1.
Youtube-2:
BEHIND THE CURTAINS -2. VITA Animal Rights Center accuses Honored
Artists of Russia of inhuman cruelty - Part 2.
Five days later, on April 22, VITA has published the names of the
five trainers on the video and has handed over its application to
the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation with a
demand to institute criminal proceedings for cruel treatment of
circus animals against the following artists: Murad Abdullaev, Natalia
Berezhko, Alexei Ermilov, Rauf Rasulov, Peter Prostetsov.
The circus community has responded to the video with a tissue of
lies and accusations against animal rights defenders. For the first
time the Russian legal system was faced with a decision-making on
the issue of cruelty towards circus animals. Having realized that
the decision would create a precedent, the guards have chosen a
temporizing policy as a simple and banal way, taking into consideration
the limited duration of the article on cruelty to animals (2 years).
According to the law they were obliged to invite the eyewitness,
who installed a hidden camera, for giving evidence and to give an
answer on the final decision. However, 6 months have passed, but
the witness was never called. In two months, in January 2014, the
period of
limitation of the crime expires for the main person involved in
this case - Murad Abdullaev. After that it won’t be possible to
make him answerable any more. Moreover, this person is a chief of
the Russian State Circus Company, that is to say that he organizes
the concert
tours all over the world.
"This kind of cruelty should not go unpunished. It creates
a sense of impunity in society and founds favorable conditions for
similar violent acts towards animals. We demand from the law enforcement
bodies to make a decision on the case and to punish the trainers",
- says
Irina Novozhilova, president of VITA.
On the basis of the abovementioned facts on October 14, 2013 VITA
Animal Rights Center has made a complaint to the Investigative Committee
of Russian Federation with a demand to make the guilty enforcement
bodies answerable for concealing the facts of cruelty
towards animals under the Art. 285 of the Criminal Code “abuse of
power”.
* Murad Abdullaev - Head of Office of the tour Russian State Circus
Company(!), Natalia Berezhko, Alex Yermylov, Rauf Rasulov are the
artists of Great Moscow State Circus on Vernadsky Prospekt, Peter
Prostetsov is an Artist of the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard.
VITA
Animal Rights Center, Russia
Original in Russian: http://www.vita.org.ru/new/2013/oct/14.htm
VITA Animal Rights Center
www.vita.org.ru
vita@vita.org.ru
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