Group Says Project Would Help Create Jobs, Foster Respect and Compassion for Others

For Immediate Release:
November 19, 2009

Contact:
Amanda Fortino 757-622-7382
 
Thomson, Ill. -- Today, PETA sent an appeal to Michael P. Randle, director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, requesting permission to convert the nearly empty Thomson Correctional Center into an empathy exhibition center in the event that the facility is not chosen to house Guantanamo Bay detainees. The center would promote respect for all living beings, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or species.

PETA points out that transforming the prison into the Thomson All Living Beings Empathy Center would help create a kinder world. PETA hopes that the center will become the permanent home of its Animal Liberation Project, which uses graphic photos to compare history's worst atrocities against humans with the current abuse of animals in slaughterhouses, on factory farms, in laboratories, and elsewhere. One panel, for example, juxtaposes a picture of child laborers with a photo of calves confined to cramped veal crates.

"In addition to creating jobs, the museum would convert a building that was designed for incarceration into a tribute to liberation," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "When it comes to showing kindness and empathy to others, the ability to feel pain and fear as well as the capacity for love and joy are what count, not an individual's race, religion, gender, or species."

For more information, please visit PETA's blog or click here to view the online version of the exhibit.

PETA's letter to Illinois Department of Corrections Director Michael P. Randle follows.

November 19, 2009

Michael P. Randle
Director
Illinois Department of Corrections

Dear Mr. Randle:

I am writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 2 million members and supporters worldwide--tens of thousands of whom live in Illinois. We have a suggestion to get the Thomson Correctional Center up and running in the event that the Guantanamo inmates aren't relocated to the facility: We'd like to turn it into the "Thomson All Living Beings Empathy Center." In addition to teaching visitors about compassion, the center would create tour-guide, cafeteria, and other jobs and generate revenue for your area in this time of economic hardship. While Guantanamo became a focal point for accusations of physical and psychological abuse, the empathy center would be a place where the values of justice, respect, and compassion for all beings--regardless of race, religion, ability, gender, or species--are taught.

The exhibit would prompt people to ask how it is that we can simply forget to be kind, how we can set aside the Golden Rule that says to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and how we can disregard the fact that all others, no matter what package they come in, are individuals like us who feel pain and fear. We envision the Thomson All Living Beings Empathy Center as an ideal home for PETA's Animal Liberation Project (ALP), a display that reminds viewers that suffering is suffering, no matter who the victim is. ALP shows that it is a lack of empathy that has allowed humans to attack, kill, enslave, exploit, and discriminate against other beings throughout history--from the Crusades to the interment of Japanese families during World War II and from human slavery to today's cruel animal circuses and factory farms.

Visitors to the center would be able to participate in a variety of interactive displays, including being crammed into a crate to simulate the life of a sow on a filthy factory farm and having packs containing 150-pound weights strapped to their backs to simulate the experience of chickens forced to support huge upper body weight because of drugs and genetic manipulation. In the cafeteria, there would be delicious veggie burgers, "not" dogs (made of plant protein and spices that do not clog the arteries or contain any cholesterol), and a host of other tasty vegan foods. And as a gift from PETA, each visitor aged 12 or under will receive a plush chicken with a tag reading, "I Am Not a Nugget!"

Please consider PETA's proposal at your earliest convenience and contact me so that we can make the Thomson All Living Beings Empathy Center a reality. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President