White House Protest: ‘Keep the Slaughterhouses Closed!’

Time to Get Over the Burger Addiction—for the Sake of Animals, Workers, and Their Families—and Keep Virus Hotbeds of Blood and Guts Shut, Says PETA

For Immediate Release:
April 29, 2020

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

PETA supporters will descend on the White House on Thursday, while observing social-distancing practices, to demand that slaughterhouses—where thousands of workers have tested positive for coronavirus—remain closed. More than 20 slaughterhouses have been temporarily shuttered under pressure from local health officials and because the workers themselves are too sick to work—but President Trump, following a plea from Tyson, issued an order on Tuesday that slaughterhouses will remain open.

When:    Thursday, April 30, 12 noon

Where:    In front of the White House in Lafayette Square, Washington

“Filthy slaughterhouses are breeding grounds for disease, and nobody should be in one right now—not the terrified animals and not the workers, who are exploited and treated like dirt at the best of times and whose families are more at risk now than ever before,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, who will be at the protest. “This order is reckless, and PETA stands in solidarity with the workers who do not wish to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a corporate bottom line and a president’s penchant for burgers.”

Swine flu began on a U.S. factory farm; the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese “wet market,” where live and dead animals are sold for human consumption; and other influenza viruses began in chickens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that approximately 75% of recently emerging 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.