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The VGT started their campaign against wild animals
in circuses in 1996. With intensive campaign work
it was possible to convince the authorities to issue
a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses in 2002.
As part of the new Animal Welfare Law this ban came
into force on January 1st 2005.
During this campaign many VGT activists were victims
of brutal attacks from circus employees. The resulting
criminal proceedings dragged on until 2004.
Subsequent to the ban a further problem arose; circuses
visiting Austria from other countries to tour and
perform were not heeding the wild animal ban. The
VGT made its voice heard here too, launching an EU-wide
campaign as well as documenting and demonstrating
against the illegal performances.
The VGT’s future vision is of circuses without any
animals. Such circuses already exist and have been
successfully performing for many years.
Campaign against circus animals
There are campaigns against wild animals in circuses
all over the world. Many other countries also have
bans, for example, many counties in countries such
as: England, Spain, Scandinavia, Brazil, Croatia and
Israel.
There are around 10 circuses in Austria. In as far
back as 1996, most of them no longer had wild animals.
In addition to the Pickhard circus with their giant
snake, only 3 circuses were keeping wild animals:
the Golden Circus with 2 dancing bears, the Austrian
National Circus Louis Knie with a big animal menagerie,
including wild animals such as hyenas, bears, lions,
tigers and elephants, and the circus Belly-Vienna
with elephants. And not forgetting, of course, the
circuses from other countries also visiting and performing
with wild animals on a regular basis.
Golden Circus
It was immediately obvious to every visitor who
took a closer look, that the small Golden Circus treated
their two bears in a terrible way: they had nose rings,
were imprisoned in a tiny cage, and confidential witnesses
told us how brutally they were treated. The Golden
Circus hardly reacted to the VGT’s campaign. In November
1999, the Circus went bankrupt, however, further performances
continued until June 2000. After that, the two bears
were transferred into the bear sanctuary in Arbesbach.
Austrian National Circus Louis Knie
This circus reacted with violence to the campaign.
In 1996 a VGT activist extensively filmed performances
where animals appeared, in preparation for the VGT
campaign. This didn’t appeal to the circus manager
Louis Knie, who punched the activist in the face.
Knie was convicted.
‘Brutal to humans – brutal to animals’. Based on
the similarity between humans and animals, studies
in criminal psychology proved a long time ago that
there is a connection between violence to humans and
violence to non-human animals. Therefore, Knie’s tactics
came as no big surprise. All in all activists from
several cities were attacked, beaten and injured.
Finally, the circus changed their strategy. But, only
after their violence brought them anything but negative
headlines.
In the years 1998 and 1999, the circus tried their
luck by trying to bring various charges against the
VGT. They also attempted to have the permission for
the VGT demos refused by intervening with the authorities.
In the end, however, the basic right of freedom of
speech won the day.
In 2000 the circus returned to using violence: in
March 2000, VGT activists, first in Krems and then
in Tulln, were attacked and badly injured by circus
employees, lead by the circus owners Louis Knie senior
and junior. In this attack, the circus people systematically
destroyed all the activists’ equipment including a
TV, electricity generator, VHS recorder, banners and
posters. In due course, the circus was ordered to
pay 100.000 Schillings (approximately 7.000 Euros)
in compensation to the VGT. There were acquittals
due lack of evidence in the criminal proceedings against
the main offenders. The court acknowledged the employees
of the circus as the attackers, however, who was responsible
for the attack, could not be proven.
On December 21st 2001, the Austrian National Circus
Louis Knie went bankrupt as well. However, a group
of benefactors bought all of the circus’s assets and,
as a result, the circus was able to continue as before.
The VGT had offered, together with other animal groups,
almost one million Schillings (approximately 70.000
Euros) to buy the remaining 70 animals – without success.
In 2001 at least, the Circus Knie had to get by without
wild animals, due to the risk of foot and mouth disease.
But the new owners had already publicly disclosed
that they planned to buy or rent new big cats and
elephants for the coming year. So, the VGT campaign
continued and charges were made against the circus
for the conditions that the animals were kept in and
breaches to the Animal Welfare Law.
Despite the ban coming into force on January 1st
2005, the circus Knie toured again around Austria
with wild animals, starting on March 12th 2005. Although
the VGT made innumerable complaints, the circus couldn’t
be prosecuted. This was largely due to the circus
changing location so fast and the authorities reacting
too slowly. Towards the end of May, the circus even
got additional support via a letter from the ministry
responsible for animal welfare. With this ‘special
authorisation’ (the ministry apparently represented
the legal opinion that some of the circus animals
were employees private pets) the circus Knie managed
to continue touring with wild animals until August
2005. On August 17th, the keeping of the animals was
officially prohibited for the first time and the circus
received a fine. On August 31st, after not having
received their licences for additional performances,
the circus went bankrupt again. The wild animals were
sold in September 2005 by the creditor bank to the
German circus Lana and were brought out of the country.
More than 100 legal complaints in a span of 9 months
were necessary to get the authorities to enforce the
ban on wild animals.
Circus Belly-Vienna
The last remaining Austrian circus with wild animals
was the Circus Belly-Vienna. It had 2 elephants who
were bought in 1997. One of these elephants is responsible
for the life threatening attack on a circus visitor.
In the year 2000, it became public that the circus
director wanted to illegally bring another elephant
into the country. The police tried to prevent this
however, the circus manager eluded the authorities
by escaping to Germany.
Beginning in September 2001, VGT activists started
informing the visitors of the circus Belly-Vienna
about conditions for the animals in the circus. In
response, the manager Mr. Zinnecker and his employees
reacted with more violence than all the other circuses
put together: in Salzburg and Bad Ischl, they beat
activists to a pulp. In total, 12 were severely injured.
Again, considerable damage was also done to VGT property.
Even though the attackers– as is usual in these types
of attacks – had tried to destroy all film cameras
of the activists, a 10 year old passer-by succeeded
in secretly filming this attack. On the next day,
almost all TV channels showed this footage. A penal
lawsuit and an adequate civil action for compensation
and for the damaged equipment were filed. The manager
Mr. Zinnecker is no stranger to the authorities: in
1990, he beat a police officer and could only be stopped
by a warning shot being fired. After the prosecution
had put to case to rest, VGT lodged a complaint, so
that the case was continued at the financial risk
of the VGT. Finally, sentences were given out: on
July 13th 2003, the circus manager Roman Zinnecker
was sentenced to a 1.000 Euros fine for grievous bodily
harm. On July 17th 2004, his accomplice Thomas Kasper
was also sentenced. He, however, only had to pay 80
Euros. Both, though, never paid a Cent.
Breach of contract proceedings against Austria
After being refused entrance to Austria for having
wild animals, several German circuses made complaints
to EU-commission. In a reminder letter from the EU
commissioner for the European Market on October 12th
2005, Mr. Charlie McCreevy criticized the Austrian
ban on wild animals in circuses stating that the ban
illegally restricts the freedom of provision of services
within the EU.
The EU-commission wanted Austria to change its ban
on wild animals in circuses such that it would only
apply to national circuses and not affect foreign
circuses. The freedom of provision of services act
means that a service provider, such as a circus for
example, which is allowed to offer its service in
one country, can do so in any other country within
the European Union without limitations. The Austrian
ban does not prevent circus performances in general,
it only asks those circuses with wild animals not
to have those animals with them. However, the EU-commission
saw this as an unreasonable limitation of activity
for a foreign circus in Austria. They said that animal
protection is indeed an important value in the EU,
however, a complete ban keeping wild animals in circuses
would be too extreme.
In response the VGT started an intensive EU-wide
campaign. This included presenting their own website
(www.vgt.at/circus.php) in different EU-languages
on December 2005, which enabled people to send automatic
protest e-mails to relevant sites and individuals
demanding that the EU let Austria keep its ban for
national and visiting circuses. As well as providing
the opportunity to send protest mails the site also
kept the public informed and up-to-date about the
campaign. By the beginning of April 2006, over 20.000
people from all over Europe had sent protest e-mails
from the VGT website.
This intensive lobbying of the EU-parliament, with
the support of virtually all animal protection and
animal rights organisations inside the European Union
resulted in a huge wave of protest. The SPÖ (Socialist
Party of Austria) MEP Jörg Leichtfried gave a speech
on December 13th in the presence of Commissioner McCreevy
saying that the protection of the welfare of animals
must be paramount in the EU. With the ban on wild
animals in circuses, Austria is leading the way for
animal protection and should be applauded not reprimanded.
Altogether, 4 critical inquiries were made to the
EU-commission (by the SPÖ on November 23rd, by the
MEP Karin Resetarits on December 6th, by Dutch MEPs
on January 5th and by English MEPs on January 12th)
and another one by a German MEP on December 9th. Innumerable
protests by animal protection and animal rights organisations
from all countries swamped the EU-commission.
By Mid-January 2006, the Austrian government answered
to the EU-Commission that the ban is just and legal
and that Austria will stand by it and take up any
challenge against it in the European Court.
On 25th January 2006, Green Party MPs brought in
a bill to the Austrian Parliament which demanded that
the government support the ban by all means necessary
and to use its 6 month period from 1st January 2006
as president of the EU-council to apply pressure for
a similar ban across the EU. A large majority voted
in favour of this proposition.
On 7th February 2006, the German Parliament followed
suit. The Green Party put a similar proposal to the
vote. Again, a large Parliamentary majority approved
the proposal, which concludes with the words: "The
German Parliament, together with all animal protectionists
in the EU, expects that the EU-Commission will stick
to the aims formulated in the EU constitutional proposal,
which includes animal welfare, and hence that the
Commission will support all efforts on the national
level to protect wild animals and that it won't insist
on forms of keeping and using animals that are inconsistent
with animal welfare or the protection of species."
On 16th February 2006, EU Parliament decided on
a new directive regarding the provision of services
across borders within the EU - which stated that those
providing services must abide by the laws of the country
they are providing the services in. This decision,
clearly, also supported the position that a ban on
wild animals in one country must be respected by the
circuses in all other countries.
While the EU-Commissioner McCreevy was reluctant
to answer any questions or to meet with animal advocate
delegations, his replies to queries changed from being
very assertive at the beginning of the campaign, to
being quite defensive at the end. Also, a number of
MEPs had been prompted by animal rights groups, especially
the VGT, to have meetings with him. It soon became
clear that the animal rights advocates had won the
day.
On March 30th, the Austrian animal welfare minister
held the first EU animal welfare day in Brussels.
The Austrian Animal Welfare Law, including the ban
on wild animals in circuses, was presented as an exemplary
example to the rest of the EU.
On 12th April 2006, Commissioner McCreevy said publicly
regarding this case: "As we had received a complaint,
we had to follow it up. But I am confident that this
case can soon be closed." After publication of
this statement, many MEPs congratulated the Commissioner
for his decision to drop the case. With this outcome,
it is clear that the welfare of animals is becoming
an increasingly important issue in the EU.
So, while the case has not been closed officially,
it seems that the Austrian ban on wild animals in
circuses will prevail. Such cases, insiders in Brussels
say, are never closed officially, but are just ignored
instead of being decided upon.
The case is now officially closed and the
EU Commission recognizes that a ban on wild animals
in circusses is necessary to accomplish animal protection
so that freedom of provision of services can be restricted
by it.
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