A milestone victory against experimentation on macaques at the Max Planck Institute
It took almost four years for the preliminary investigation to result in a judgment and sanction for the researchers-abusers. The German public prosecutor has sentenced three researchers from the Max Planck Institute (IMP) in Tübingen (Germany) aimed at our joint complaint. The court found that the pain and suffering of these experimented animals was not kept to an absolute minimum. It's a euphemism, one of them died from the effects of these invasive and violent tests! This condemnation is a victory in this closed world, but does not compensate for the extreme suffering that these intelligent and sensitive beings have undergone.
It took almost four years for the preliminary investigation to result in a judgment and sanction for the researchers-abusers. The German public prosecutor has sentenced three researchers from the Max Planck Institute (IMP) in Tübingen (Germany) aimed at our joint complaint. The court found that the pain and suffering of these experimented animals was not kept to an absolute minimum. It’s a euphemism, one of them died from the effects of these invasive and violent tests! This condemnation is a victory in this closed world, but does not compensate for the extreme suffering that these intelligent and sensitive beings have undergone.
For seven months from 2013 to 2014, Cruelty Free International, One Voice’s partner in the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE), in collaboration with the German association Soko Tierschutz, infiltrated one of IMP laboratories.
Watching the images filmed on site, we can only feel moved by compassion for these little macaques: we are witnessing abominable acts of torture (trephination and implantation of electrodes in the brain, manipulation with collars and injections), held inside plastic tubes from which only the head comes out, deprivation of water …). It’s simple: one wonders how such methods are scientifically and morally acceptable.
These monkeys are our compatriots!
What’s more, learning that eight of them were born in French parks, Planète Sauvage and Savane Nature, we have never stopped denouncing these inhuman and degrading practices for our cousins that are so close to us. We gave them a name, of which was reduced to “serial numbers” or tricked by mocking researchers using nicknames. The frail Stella (pictured) died of an infection at the very beginning of the experiments. Leah, Hugo, Tom, Lisa, Max, Mila and Lucie have all continued to undergo atrocious experiments.
Where are they?
Our campaign was the reason for the closure of the laboratory. Little primates were, as always when they do not die, still “profitable”, that is to say sent to other laboratories, to undergo further tests. Not knowing what the IMP had done with them or where they had sent them, since transparency is not the policy of this medium, we filed a request for access to information rights in July 2017. A laboratory in Belgium admitted to having received five primates, on which other experiments are still being perpetrated…
Let’s free them!
We continue to fight for their return to France and to be entrusted to us. They must be saved from this hell and set free into sanctuaries, where they will finally be entitled to a dignified existence! Jane Goodall joined our call for their release.
Let’s ban animal testing on monkeys.
With our British and German partners (CFI and Doctors Against Animal Experiments), we obtained at the time, thanks to a vast international campaign and your mobilization in France, more than 90000 signatures demanding the abolition of experiments on non-human primates.
Let’s continue to fight in memory of Stella, for Leah, Hugo, Tom, Lisa, Max, Mila and Lucie, and for the stopping of animal experimentation on primates! The experimental protocols they undergo are barbaric, nothing justifies them.
Crédit photo : Cruelty-Free International/Soko Tierschutz