Angry Protesters to Say, ‘Stop JBS COVID Crisis’

PETA, UARC Will Turn Out in Honor of Advocate Killed by Animal-Transport Truck and in Support of Cows, and Workers

For Immediate Release:
June 24, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Armed with signs proclaiming, “Meat Is Murder for Animals AND Workers,” members of PETA and the Utah Animal Rights Coalition (UARC) will gather outside the JBS slaughterhouse in Hyrum, which remains open even though nearly 300 of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, to call for its closure. The protesters will also honor the memory of Regan Russell, a PETA member who was killed by a pig-transport truck last week as she stood outside a pig slaughterhouse in Canada, peacefully protesting the needless killing of animals for food.

When:    Thursday, June 25, 2 p.m.

Where:    4698 S. 1200 W. (near W. 400 N.), Hyrum (Cache County)

“We are calling for this disease-riddled slaughterhouse to shut down and stay closed until it switches to producing only plant-based meat,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “JBS has to stop abusing and killing sensitive animals, jeopardizing public health, and treating vulnerable human beings as cheap, disposable labor.”

Recently, PETA sent JBS a letter offering to help with the cost of retraining its employees to produce exclusively vegan meat, noting that the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese “wet market,” where live and dead animals are sold for human consumption; swine flu began on a U.S. factory farm; and other influenza viruses have been traced to chickens. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that approximately 75% of recently emerged infectious diseases affecting humans originated in other animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.