Tomorrow in Rome, a demonstration parade organized by the group “Fermate Green Hill” (Stop Green Hill) will start from Piazza Della Repubblica. The name given to the demonstration is: “To close Green Hill and all the breeders of animals destined to labs!”.

We support this demonstration and will be present to it. Vivisection is a shame that doesn’t spare any animal species, equines included. Furthermore, while IHP is mostly about equines, we support the right to life and wellbeing of every living being, to the point of promoting vegetarianism and veganism.

For those not aware of it, Green Hill of Montechiari is the only breeder of “lab dogs” still operating in Italy, and one of the biggest in Europe: 2500 beagles (pups and breeding stock) are locked in cages inside five windowless sheds, without outdoor spaces and natural light and air. Dogs bred to be sold to labs across Europe. And there is the project to increase their number by building other sheds. One of the labs buying from Green Hill is the infamous Huntington Life Sciences – which has two bases, one in UK, the other in USA – the greatest toxicology center in Europe and the only one to see its licenses temporary revoked because of documented tortures to animals. In 1996, visual records secretly taken by a Channel 4 journalist, showed beagles pups being hit with fists on the muzzle, being thrown against the walls, being killed in the cages, being dissected while their hearts still beat. A 2008 investigation, twelve years after those events, has found the same conditions and the same work methods. This is vivisection. (Information taken from a “Diretta News” article: click here to read the whole article).

The demonstration is not just about Green Hill, but also about the European and Italian legislation. A few days ago, the new European Directive regarding vivisection has been voted and it completely ignored the requests made by the European Coalition against vivisection. Instead, it made big gifts to the powerful enterprises growing rich with the scan of the experiments on animals. Not only the negative aspects of the old directive are still present, but the possibilities of torture have been increased. Some examples: the use of stray dogs and cats; the use of endangered and/or captured wild species; the use of the carbon dioxide inhalation as killing method of reference; the possibility to do experiments, even extremely painful ones, without anesthesia.

Italy must now apply this Directive, and this is where the people taking at heart the animal wellbeing will focus their efforts, to make sure some positive national rules (IE, the use of stray cats and dog for vivisection is forbidden by the Italian law since 1991) will remain, and to make sure the European Directive will be applied in the most restrictive way possible.

This is why the demonstration is important, as a first step of a movement that must involve all of us, to say stop to this useless suffering. The associations will do their part, but all of you, private citizens, must be aware of what is happening, in order not to risk becoming accomplices: the next time you decide to make a donation for a research, take information about how your money will be used, and maybe direct your donation toward true research, the kind that doesn’t use animals and obtains true results.