Friday Ape Blogging: Activists Want Human Rights for a Chimp

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This is Hiasl. He’s 26, fairly artistic, and very hairy. Born in Sierra Leone, he was captured and smuggled out but intercepted by customs agents in Austria, a country with strict laws against animal cruelty, where he wound up in a shelter.

Now the shelter has gone bankrupt, and to protect him, advocates say he needs basic human rights. “We’re not talking about the right to vote here,” said Eberhart Theuer, a lawyer leading the challenge. “We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions.”

It’s part of the Great Ape Project. Not all animal rights activists agree with the strategy. Michael Antolini, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Austria, “I’m not about to make myself look like a fool” by getting involved.