Fines of up to 7 thousand pesos could be applied against those who practice various forms of animal abuse in Cuba, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) warn.
A MINAG team met with representatives of civil society and the State to discuss issues regarding the draftAnimal Welfare Law presented by activists since last year and postponed by the National Assembly, which will discuss the activation of the regulations this February.
Members of Animal Welfare of Cuba (BAC) met at the event, led by its presidentJavier Larrea Formoso, and representatives of the Association for the Protection of Animals and Plants (AniPlant), the only legal civil sector organization on the island.
Both they and MINAG officials agreed that “the amount of the fines must be rigorous,” according to a report.article ofCubadebate.
The deputy director of Animal Health, Cristóbal Arredondo Alfonso, suggested incorporating subjects and content that address animal welfare issues into the study programs of the Ministry of Education.
The note indicates that, for 30 years, the AniPlant team and its president, Nora García Pérez, have presented on three occasions a draft of animal welfare in Cuba, to convert the capture and mistreatment of animals into a sanction.
“Many people were very disappointed because there was no law and it could not be sanctioned,” García Pérez explained about the broad popular demand to activate, for the first time, a regulation concerned with recognizing animal rights on the island.
Within the typologies of animal abuse, activists recalled the weight of zoophilia, whose severity tends to be minimized in Cuban society. According to Larrea Formoso, the possibility of including this figure in the Penal Code should be considered.
The law student has also suffered the consequences of legal helplessness and the state of anarchy and barbarism that exists in Cuba with respect to animals,when his two dogs were poisoned last Saturday. A similar event had already been reported in the city of Santa Clara in the same week.
In the opinion of journalist Yoani Sánchez, director of the newspaper14 September, the maneuver is due to a kind of lesson or corrective by those in power against civil society actors who are beginning to empower themselves and call on citizens.
"The activists of the Cuban animal movement have done everything they can. Since they began to gain prominence, save animals and summon more and more people to rescue from abuse and abandonment so many dogs and cats that suffer on this Island, they have The threats rained down, the intrigues fabricated in the State Security laboratories, the 'baits' to make them believe that the Animal Protection Law was just around the corner... the accusations of "mercenaries", the interrogations and now this ... It's hard to listen to this video, I confess that it took me hours to see it in full, because I can't even think about the pain that Javier Larrea is going through right now," explains Yoani about the video that Larrondo himself uploaded to the networks. social, heartbroken, while denouncing the murder of his pets.
In relation to dog fighting, the deputy director of Animal Health reported that they will be completely prohibited, however, he made a distinction with respect to cockfighting, which he considered “part of our culture and idiosyncrasy,” even when these birds fight. to death within a circular fence from which they cannot escape, and it has been shown that their perception of pain is similar to that of mammals, therefore, the suffering is also the same.
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