Spain’s parliament recently passed a resolution granting legal rights to apes.
...A nonbinding resolution in Spain, which the Parliament now has to flesh out with more specific laws, allows apes to be kept in zoos but not used in circuses or other kinds of performances. It calls for banning research that harms apes.
With the resolution, Spain becomes the world leader in protecting the rights of apes...
Perhaps "Matthew Hiasl Pan" should move to Spain. I bet Spain would grant Pan asylum.
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Austria's Supreme Court refuses to recognize the humanity of Matthew Hiasl Pan.
That's a good thing because Pan is a chimp, literally.
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Austria's Supreme Court has dashed hopes by animal rights activists to have a chimpanzee declared a person, a statement suggested Tuesday.
The court recently rejected a petition to appoint a trustee for the chimp, named Matthew Hiasl Pan, the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories said, and subsequently vowed to contact the European Court of Human Rights over the matter.
The court's decision follows in the footsteps of a similar ruling last fall. In September, a provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case, ruling the Association Against Animal Factories has no legal standing to argue on the chimp's behalf.
The legal back and forth began in February, when the animal shelter where Pan and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years filed for bankruptcy protection.
Activists want to ensure the apes don't wind up homeless. Both were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.
I'm all for protecting animals from abuse, but it's crazy for the Association Against Animal Factories to argue that Pan is a person.
Animals aren't people.
I wonder how many of these activists believe that a human fetus should not be granted personhood.
Why would the Association Against Animal Factories contact the European Court of Human Rights over the matter?
What about "human" don't they understand?
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