Hedgehogs Suffering At Carrefour

RSC's letter published in MalaysiaKini below on Feb 6 this year:

I refer to the letter Hedgehogs suffering at Carrefour.

For all those like Soraya, who witness such cruelty and exploitation of animals, I encourage you to please:

1. Ask to see the store manager right away and inform him that you are a customer and disgusted with them being cruel to animals this way. Tell them that you are going to write a letter to their head office and media to complain.

2. Ask for the e-mail addresses of the head office in Malaysia and overseas and write a strong letter against the company that is abusing the animals. Copy your letter to all media. It helps to show the media that there are people out there who feel strongly against animal abuse.

3. Copy also your letter to Peta (People's Ethical Treatment of Animals). Peta will send a letter to Carrefour. They are very faithful in doing this and very efficient. For e-mail addresses, see here.

4. Once your letter has come out in Malaysiakini, send a copy as a follow-up to the manager to whom you complained, the company’s Public Relations Department and its head office.

Don't bother complaining to the Wildlife Department or the Veterinary Services Department (VSD). This is Bolehland where our former PM is now suddenly suffering from amnesia when called to account all his past misdeeds, ‘judge-fixing’ and corruption before a royal commission.

Unless we throw out this Barisan Nasional government in the coming elections, don't count on any of these governmental bodies set up to look after animals to pay any attention to your complaints even though its their job to act on complaints.

During an official meeting with 30 animal welfare activists at the Housing and Local Government Ministry in February 2006, I asked why the VSD never responded to pleas from Sheena's neighbour to save her.

Sheena was an Alsatian kept starving and tied up by a cruel engineer. Sheena's neighbour tried to feed the dog. Her pathetic photo after her death was splayed all over the newspapers, breaking people's hearts.

The VSD representative there was livid with anger and called the newspapers ‘liars’. But then I recounted my own experience with the VSD. A senior enforcement officer had told me they ‘had no time to deal with such complaints as they had other more important things to do’.

Caught red-handed, the VSD representative at the meeting could not answer except say that the enforcement officer was right and he began mumbling some things. I concluded with disgust then that despite there being laws in the country that the VSD should act upon a complaint of animal abuse, they are now blatantly saying in the presence of 30 over people that they can't be bothered to do anything. Such is the arrogance of the Barisan Nasional government.

What's more, I received a phone call on my handphone from this senior enforcement officer at (I don't know how he obtained my number) threatening me to be quiet. I lodged a police report and wrote letters to the Housing and Local Government Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry. Until today, I've never received a reply from any of these government ministries.

So don't count on the government doing anything to help animals or lost children or the elderly or the disabled or the weakest in society. They are too busy raping our forests for the big bucks from timber, too busy hiding scandals, too busy with all their corrupt activities to bother actually running the country for the good of the country and its people and animals.

Please vote for the opposition in the coming elections. It does not matter what symbol you tick as long as it is not BN’s. Even if it is a Chair, Table, Tree or Lamp-post symbol, just tick ! Any of them would be better than the government we have now.

People must understand that a change in leadership is healthy for a democracy. That is why the US president can’t stay longer than two terms. Only in Malaysia do you have old cronies and their children still clutching on to their lucrative positions - this because the ‘rakyat’ have been made blind, deaf and dumb through the mainstream media which is a puppet on a string.