UW Leaders to Face Monkey-Masked PETA Protest at Home
Group Will Demand Closure of Notoriously Cruel Washington National Primate Research Center
For Immediate Release:
December 16, 2020
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Tomorrow, a group of PETA supporters wearing monkey masks will gather for peaceful, socially distanced silent protests outside the homes of two University of Washington (UW) leaders—Dean Sean D. Sullivan and Sally Thompson-Iritani, the interim director of the Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC)—to urge them to close down the research center.
When: December 17, 9 a.m.
Where: Home of WaNPRC Interim Director Sally Thompson-Iritani
When: December 17, 12:30 p.m.
Where: Home of UW Dean Sean D. Sullivan
For nearly 60 years, the WaNPRC has promised that confining and experimenting on macaques would lead to vaccines for diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, Zika, and malaria. However, no vaccines have materialized and tens of thousands of monkeys have been harmed and killed. The primate center has a long history of animal welfare violations: Monkeys have died from strangulation, dehydration, starvation, being mauled by other stressed monkeys, and veterinary mistakes.
“The UW primate center is a relic that squanders funds and monkeys’ lives,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA will bring this issue home for UW’s leaders and urge them to follow Harvard’s example by shutting this failed institution down.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
