Global News - June 2008

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Spanish government gives great apes 'human rights'

Fri 27 June 2008 14:00 UK — Europe,Primates

Reports suggest that the Spanish parliament has voted to recognise the rights of great apes to life and freedom.

The Spanish parliament voted on Wednesday (June 26th) to support the Great Apes Project (GAP) - a system devised by scientists and philosophers who believe that the primates deserve rights previously only afforded to humans.

Dr Pedro Ynterian, the incoming GAP international president, commented: "This is the first time in the history of humanity that an important parliament has announced its approval of rights for great primates."

Reuters reported that the move will mean that the keeping of apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will be forbidden in Spain, as will using the animals for medical testing.

"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening," the news agency quotes Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of GAP, as having said.

The new law will make such an action an offence under Spain's penal code.

Philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri founded the GAP in 1993. They said that there was undeniable scientific evidence that non-human great apes share many characteristics with humans.

As a result, these animals should have "fundamental moral and legal protections of the right to life, the freedom from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and protection from torture".

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