On June 19, 2020, Canadian animal rights activist and protester Regan Russell was run over and killed by an animal transporter after a demonstration outside Sofina Foods Inc. subsidiary Fearman's Pork Inc., a pig slaughterhouse in Burlington, Ontario. The driver of the transporter was subsequently charged with careless driving causing death.
Russell began campaigning for animal rights when she was 24 years old, with her first protest against seal culling taking place outside a government building in Winnipeg. In 1985, she read Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals and became a vegan.
Russell was a member of Toronto Pig Save, a branch of the animal rights organization Animal Save Movement, which frequently organized demonstrations outside Canada's oldest pig slaughterhouse, Fearman's Pork Inc. in Burlington, a subsidiary of Sofina Foods Inc., owned by Michael Latifi. These demonstrations involved activists requesting transporters to wait outside the entrance to the premises for two minutes and filming themselves giving water to the slaughter-bound pigs through holes in the trailer On the morning of June 19, 2020, Russell and six other activists from Toronto Pig Save held a pig-watering demonstration outside Fearman's Pork Inc. slaughterhouse. According to witnesses, the last transporter arrived at the slaughterhouse around 10:20 a.m., stopping in the inner lane of the roadway, instead of the lane nearer to the entrance to the premises. At the end of the demonstration, the transporter drove through the entrance. Russell, who had been standing in the crosswalk in front of the entrance during the demonstration and was possibly crossing the road, was run over by the transporter, which severed and dragged her body several yards. Russell bled to death before an ambulance arrived on the scene.
We call on Michael Latifi, CEO of Sofina Foods and Fearmans slaughterhouse to set up a Safety Agreement to enable us to safely bear witness to the pigs at weekly vigils. In Toronto, the security guard at Ryding-Regency Meat Packers keeps the gates shut for a set time so activists can safely bear witness.
In Los Angeles, the LA police department facilitates a safety agreement at weekly vigils by stopping the trucks to allow activists to bear witness and give water to the pigs for a set time prior to the trucks entering Farmer John slaughterhouse at LA Animal Save's weekly vigils. The Save Movement has over 500 groups around the world and many chapters have safety agreements in place to enable activists to safely bear witness to the animals arriving to be killed.
There is no excuse or reason for Fearmans and Michael Latifi to continually put activists lives in danger.
We call on Fearmans and Sofina Foods to be part of the solution and shift to a plant based protein company and thereby save lives and avoid the risks of drought, floods and extreme heat associated with catastrophic climate change.
Fearmans kills 10,000 pigs a day, over 2.5 million pigs a year, each a sentient animal who does not want to die. Consuming animal products causes a whole host of diseases and is a major contributor to climate change. A recent UN report has warned that the earth only has 12 years left to combat climate change before it becomes irreversible. See The Guardian's "Huge reduction in meat-eating ‘essential’ to avoid climate breakdown" https://bit.ly/2yqcKaq This trajectory would smash critical environmental limits beyond which humanity will struggle to live, the new research indicates. “It is pretty shocking,” said Marco Springmann at the University of Oxford, who led the research team. “We are really risking the sustainability of the whole system.” Professor Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, says: “Greening the food sector or eating up our planet: this is what is on the menu today.” What you can do:
You can stop these atrocities now by voting with your wallet and BOYCOTTING the animal agriculture industry. STOP supporting this cruelty. Help shut down the most violent places on the planet!
If you live in Burlington, join us for our weekly vigils, Thursday mornings 8am - 10:00am at Fearmans slaughterhouse, Appleby Line or email savemovementinfo@gmail.com for information about vigils in your area or to start a chapter.
Switch to a whole foods, plant-based diet and live cruelty free! Save the animals, the planet and your health. Go to www.veg.ca to take the veggie challenge and for more information.
Please support our work by visiting our website www.TorontoPigSave.org or www.thesavemovement.org
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