Massive Nepali animal slaughter condemned
Updated
Thousands of Hindu devotees have flocked to a village in Nepal ahead of this week's planned sacrifice of around half a million animals in a ceremony condemned by animal rights activists, including French actress Brigitte Bardot.
Priests are preparing for the slaughter of more than 15,000 buffaloes and 300,000 birds, goats and sheep during the event, which starts Tuesday and is thought to be the biggest ritual sacrifice anywhere in the world. Nepal's government has refused to put a stop to what it says is a centuries old religious tradition.
Presenter: Claudette Werden
Speaker: Pramada Shah, director of Animal Nepal
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WERDEN: Now it happens every 5 years, what's the significance of this particular sacrifice?
SHAH:Well there's a belief this particular goddess fulfills people's wishes or if some of their wishes have already been fulfilled they make a pledge to sacrifice an animal and this happens in the southern parts of Nepal in a place called Bariyapur and it's adjoining to the border of India which is Bihar and we get around 60 to 70 per cent visitors to this fair are from Bihar and UP.
WERDEN: Obviously your organisation is unhappy about this.
SHAH: All of us who have started this campaign believe that animal sacrifice is not necessary even according to the Hindu religion because we've talked to a lot of priests and they have confirmed that our holy scriptures do not prescribe animal sacrifice and that's not the only thing, it's the cruelty that these animals face that we are against and we would like this practice to stop because we feel it's our right when we visit a temple we don't want to see blood and there are a lot of Nepalese and a lot of people even from India who don't support animal sacrifice. So it's basically a cruelty issue and also it's an issue about in the 21st century do we really need to do this.
WERDEN: So how many protestors are actually going to go to this place, the Gadhimai temple?
SHAH: It's going to be a symbolic protest because this area that we are talking about is a conflict area and it can be very dangerous for protestors as well, so we are doing a symbolic protest and telling people to offer flowers, ours is basically a peaceful protest and we have the buddhist community who have also come forward and said that they would like to put a stop to this. So we've all come together and we won't be a very large number in Bariyapur because we don't want to get confrontational and we've been advised against doing that but we want to send a message out that it's not necessary to sacrifice animals.
WERDEN: And I understand you have the support of high profile animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot, how did you secure that?
SHAH: We've been working with her foundation for about a couple of years now and she's been supporting ANIMAL NEPAL to actually set up some sanctuaries for animals in Kathmandu, so that was our contact, we contacted her through her foundation and she was kind enough to actually send a letter to our President and Prime Minister requesting them to stop this practice.
WERDEN: And has she received a response or has your organisation received a response?
SHAH: No we have not received any responses but what the government's line is that it's a thing that has been going on, it's a cultural event, it's been going on for a very long time and that they do not want to hurt the sentiments of any community, so they cannot actually put a stop to it forcefully but they hope that eventually people will realise that this is not necessary and it will come to a stop
