Terrorist Threat Prompts PETA Mall Ads: ‘Buy Vegan, and No One Gets Hurt’

New Campaign Points Out That Nonviolence Begins With What We Eat and Wear

For Immediate Release:
February 25, 2015

Contact:
Alexis Sadoti 202-483-7382

In the wake of terrorist threats against America’s malls and shopping centers, PETA wants to show shoppers that while they need to keep a watchful eye out for their own safety, they can do something tangible to reduce violence. PETA is launching a new shopping mall ad campaign that shows cows’ and lambs’ faces next to the words “Violence Is No Joke. Buy Vegan, and No One Gets Hurt.” PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat, wear, … or abuse in any other way”—hopes that the ads will encourage shoppers to avoid subsidizing violence and instead choose to buy cruelty-free food and clothing that leave animals unharmed, alive, and well.

“Everyone can make compassionate choices when shopping and reject violence to all living beings,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “PETA’s ads are a reminder that lambs and cows are treated violently and killed for the sake of a sandwich or a sweater—and that we can vote for nonviolence simply by choosing vegan meals and clothing.”

It’s not just lambs and cows, of course. Chickens and turkeys have their throats slit in slaughterhouses, fish are suffocated or cut open while they’re still alive on the decks of fishing boats, and calves are torn away from their mothers within hours of birth so that supermarkets can sell the milk that nature intended for them. The millions of animals whose skins are turned into leather endure branding, tail-docking, dehorning, and castration—all without painkillers. And as PETA’s exposé of the wool industry revealed, gentle sheep are beaten, punched, and even killed by impatient shearers.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.