SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, DEUTSCHE WELLE (Germany)
The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a German ban on a poster campaign by (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) in Germany, reports Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
The campaign used gruesome Nazi concentration camp imagery to evoke the suffering of factory-farmed animals today.
The decision said that limiting PETA’s basic right to express an opinion with its “Holocaust On Your Plate” campaign was justified in view of the “specific context of German history.”
The campaign dates back to 2004, but its implementation was blocked by a Berlin court decision. Deutsche Welle reports that the Central Council of Jews in Germany had sought an injunction against campaign saying that using the pictures trivialized the fate of Holocaust victims. PETA appealed, but the German Constitutional Court upheld the decision.
The decision was welcomed by Central Council’s president, Dieter Graumann, writes Deutsche Welle. “To exploit the Holocause to protest against factory farming is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable,” said Graumann.
A similar campaign did, however, run in the USA but the posters for the planned German campaign were more explicit. One poster showed naked concentration camp inmates next to pictures of starving cattle. Another juxtaposed piles of human bodies with piles of slaughtered pigs.
PETA has three months to appeal if it chooses to do so.
