FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (TWO PAGES):
Banding together against animal
cruelty
Spearheaded
by author, Shoba Mano, and her magazine, AGAPE, the group is currently driven
by her and writer Daniel Chandran, lecturer Eddy Lee and customer service officer,
Tantiyana Sutan Shahril.
Together
they have created a blog at www.remembersheena.blogspot.com
and have written scores of letters to individuals, organisations and even to
popular songstress, Siti Nurhaliza, for help to raise public awareness against
cruelty to animals.
They
have also faxed an open letter to the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of
Malaysia, Yg Amat
Arif Tun
Dato' Sri Ahmad Fairuz bin Dato' Sheikh Abdul Halim, appealing for the courts
to mete out appropriate custodial sentences to those convicted of animal
cruelty, compared to the current practise of handing out token sentences.
Closest
to their hearts is the fact that Section 44(1)(d) of the Animal Ordinance 1953
only carries a maximum RM200 fine, or a maximum six months jail, or both for
those who neglect, starve, mercilessly beat or kill their pets.
Shoba,
who is also a lawyer, said: “We cannot believe that in this day and age, when
Malaysian laws have progressed so much and in so many areas, that we still have
toothless ordinances that encourage animal cruelty due to their
ineffectiveness.
“That’s
why we wrote to the Chief Justice and formed the Remembering Sheena Campaign which is now helping the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in its signature drive to petition
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, to amend the Ordinance.
“We
know that the Prime Minister has a heart and takes a personal interest in the
welfare of all Malaysians. Now, we urge him to do the right thing and amend the
Animal Ordinance 1953 without further delay, to provide for stiffer penalties
against cruel pet owners.”
SPCA
inspector, Sabrina Yeap, said the SPCA originally started the petition to the Prime
Minister, to raise the fine to a significantly higher figure of around RM10,000.
They
are also seeking to increase the custodial
sentence, bar the return of the animals to their cruel owners as is the current
court practise, and place a lifetime ban on convicted owners from keeping
animals.
“The
petition, which included the signatures of supporters, was supposed have been handed
to the Prime Minister in October 2004. However, we delayed it as we only
managed to obtain 20,000
signatures.
“Since
then, we have entered phase two in hopes of collecting at least 100,000
signatures locally and abroad. Since Sheena’s story and that of the four
neglected cats were published, and the Remembering
Sheena Campaign formed, several
thousand new signatories have joined the campaign,” she said.
Yeap,
who said the petition form is available online at www.spca.org.my encouraged all Malaysians
“to sign it and join the campaign as a voice for voiceless animals”.
She
said the SPCA needed all the help they could get to raise public awareness
against animal cruelty and was thankful to the Media for highlighting such
cases.
“However,
I am very disappointed that the courts rarely impose custodial sentences, and
when they had been imposed, there has not been a single case since 1953 where a
judge sentenced a cruel pet owner to more than three days in jail when the
current law allows for a maximum of six months.
“Now,
with individuals like Shoba and her group, and magazines like AGAPE expressing
their disgust at animal cruelty and playing an active role in educating the
public on how to treat animals right, we hope the courts too will be conscious
of their duty to enforce the full extent of the current law.
“Their
open letter to the Chief Justice quotes Mahatma Gandhi as saying that ‘the
greatness of a nation is seen from the way it treats its animals’. That
statement says a lot for the current state of our nation, so let’s put a stop
to animal cruelty by having our courts impose deterrent fines and sentences,”
Yeap said.
-End-