New videos show that animal abuse continues on Finnish pig farms

Finnish animal rights organization Oikeutta Eläimille (Justice for Animals) published yet another investigation into pig farms in November 2011. New images and videos from pig factories prove that nothing has changed within the last four years. Intelligent animals such as pigs are still in filthy and cramped conditions, sows are kept in farrowing crates where they can't even turn around, and many animals have sores, bites, wounds, hernias and injured legs.

On Thursday 1.12. Oikeutta Eläimille published two new videos from pig farms. One of the farms is owned by the head of the Pig farmers association, who has been in the media a lot in the recent days. The video shows wounds, sores, dead animals, mice running around the place, sows in farrowing crates and missing tails. Watch the video and pictures from the leading figure of the pig industry in Finland.

The other farm belongs to a board member of Atria, a big meat company. This farm was in awful state. One pig had a hernia so large, that it was bloody from rubbing against the floor. There was tails that had been bitten off and one pig had a swollen ear.
You can watch the video and pictures here.

The material shows that animals are still suffering and continue to suffer as long as they are treated as production machines and not sentient beings and individuals with their own right. We need to take responsibility of how animals are treated in our society.

Similar images from pig farms were published already in 2007 and 2009. After the new pictures over 100 Finnish pig farms have been investigated, so these are not individual cases. These problems are an inherent part of the industrial pig production.

After the investigation in 2009 twelve pig farmers decided to start a lawsuit against two investigators, who publicly admitted having filmed some of the material. Karry Hedberg and Saila Kivelä were charged with "aggravated defamation" of the pig farmers and "disturbing the peace".

As if this wasn't enough, they are also charged two Oikeutta Eläimille -activists for the aggravated defamation. The reason? There was a link to the sikatehtaat.fi webpage on the oikeuttaelaimille.net home page. The prosecutor explained the reason in court in October. Oikeutta Eläimille had shared a link to a page which has video material that has been obtained illegally, and that according to him was aggravated defamation of the pig farmers. By saying this, he failed to remember that every national newspaper and tv-channel had the link to the sikatehtaat-page on their sites too in 2009.

The verdict came in November. All charges of aggravated defamation were abandoned, and also all claims for compensation of almost 200 000 euros. This means that it was not illegal to publish the material or the link to the sikatehtaat.fi -site.

For three of the activists, the "disturbing the peace" charge was abandoned. One of the activists was convicted of one count of disturbing the peace at one pig farm. He received 20 day suspended prison sentence and was ordered to pay 1500 euros court costs for the farmer. The farm in Mustasaari was the most shocking of the whole material, and it was filmed twice. You can watch the video here.

However, some of the pig farmers and the prosecutor decided to appeal, so the court case is not over. The case will go to the court of appeals sometime in 2012.

If you want to support the campaign, please share this page and the video. You can contact us on info (at) oikeuttaelaimille.net