Buy Hydrocodone Syrup
8 May
May 07, 2007 — By William J. Kole, Associated Press
VIENNA, Australia — In some ways, Hiasl is Buy Hydrocodone Syrup like any other Viennese: He indulges a weakness for pastry, likes to Buy Hydrocodone Syrup paint and enjoys chilling out watching TV. But he doesn’t care for coffee, and he isn’t actually a person — at least not yet.
In a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to Buy Hydrocodone Syrup apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26-year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup “person.”
Hiasl’s supporters argue he needs that Buy Hydrocodone Syrup status to become a legal entity that can receive donations and Buy Hydrocodone Syrup get a guardian to look out for his interests.
“Our main argument is Buy Hydrocodone Syrup that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights,” said Eberhart Theuer, a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup lawyer leading the challenge on behalf of the Association Against Animal Factories, a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup Vienna animal rights group.
“We mean the Buy Hydrocodone Syrup right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to Buy Hydrocodone Syrup freedom under certain conditions,” Theuer said.
“We’re not talking about the right to vote here.”
The campaign began after the animal sanctuary where Hiasl (pronounced HEE-zul) and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years went bankrupt.
Activists want to ensure the apes don’t wind up homeless if the Buy Hydrocodone Syrup shelter closes. Both have already suffered: They were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and Buy Hydrocodone Syrup smuggled in a crate to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the Buy Hydrocodone Syrup shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.
Their food and veterinary bills run about $6,800 a month. Donors have offered to help, but there’s a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup catch: Under Austrian law, only a person can receive personal donations.
Organizers could set up a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup foundation to collect cash for Hiasl, whose life expectancy in captivity is Buy Hydrocodone Syrup about 60 years. But without basic rights, they contend, he could be Buy Hydrocodone Syrup sold to someone outside Austria, where the chimp is protected by strict animal cruelty laws.
“If we can Buy Hydrocodone Syrup get Hiasl declared a person, he would have the right to Buy Hydrocodone Syrup own property. Then, if people wanted to donate something to him, he’d have the right to receive it,” said Theuer, who Buy Hydrocodone Syrup has vowed to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
Austria isn’t the only country where primate rights are being debated. Spain’s parliament is Buy Hydrocodone Syrup considering a bill that would endorse the Great Ape Project, a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup Seattle-based international initiative to extend “fundamental moral and legal protections” to apes.
If Hiasl gets a guardian, “it will be Buy Hydrocodone Syrup the first time the species barrier will have been crossed for Buy Hydrocodone Syrup legal ‘personhood,’” said Jan Creamer, chief executive of Animal Defenders International, which is Buy Hydrocodone Syrup working to end the use of primates in research.
Paula Stibbe, a Buy Hydrocodone Syrup Briton who teaches English in Vienna, petitioned a district court to Buy Hydrocodone Syrup be Hiasl’s legal trustee. On April 24, Judge Barbara Bart rejected her request, ruling Hiasl didn’t meet two key tests: He is Buy Hydrocodone Syrup neither mentally impaired nor in an emergency.
Although Bart expressed concern that Buy Hydrocodone Syrup awarding Hiasl a guardian could create the impression that animals enjoy the Buy Hydrocodone Syrup same legal status as humans, she didn’t rule that he could never be considered a person.
Martin Balluch, who Buy Hydrocodone Syrup heads the Association Against Animal Factories, has asked a federal court for Buy Hydrocodone Syrup a ruling on the guardianship issue.
“Chimps share 99.4 percent of their DNA with humans,” he said. “OK, they’re not homo sapiens. But they’re obviously also not things — the only other option the law provides.”
Not all Austrian animal rights activists back the Buy Hydrocodone Syrup legal challenge. Michael Antolini, president of the local Society for Buy Hydrocodone Syrup the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said he thinks it’s absurd.
“I’m not about to make myself look like a fool” by getting involved, said Antolini, who Buy Hydrocodone Syrup worries that chimpanzees could gain broader rights, such as copyright protections on their photographs.
But Stibbe, who Buy Hydrocodone Syrup brings Hiasl sweets and yogurt and watches him draw and Buy Hydrocodone Syrup clown around by dressing up in knee-high rubber boots, insists he deserves more legal rights “than bricks or apples or potatoes.”
“He can be very playful but also thoughtful,” she said. “Being with him is like playing with someone who can’t talk.”
A date for the appeal hasn’t been set, but Hiasl’s legal team has Buy Hydrocodone Syrup lined up expert witnesses, including Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost observer of chimpanzee behavior.
“When you see Hiasl, he really comes across as a person,” Theuer said.
“He has Buy Hydrocodone Syrup a real personality. It strikes you immediately: This is an individual. You just have Buy Hydrocodone Syrup to look him in the eye to see that.”
——
Great Ape Project, http://www.greatapeproject.org
Animal Defenders International, http://www.ad-international.org
Source: Associated Press
