Two animal activists were sentenced Wednesday March 24 in Toulouse to two and three months suspended prison sentence for having "
released
" twenty rabbits in an INRA laboratory to denounce "
state eugenics
".
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"
INRA (The national agricultural research institute became Inrae - for the environment - in 2020 Editor's note) is the tap that spills the blood of slaughterhouses,
" said Solveig Halloin, one of the two activists of the collective Animal1st prosecuted, who received a three-month suspended prison sentence.
On May 21, 2017, the defendants Vincent Aubry and Solveig Halloin, entered with a group of a dozen people into the premises of INRA in Toulouse and seized around twenty pregnant rabbits.
An action claimed in the following days from the
Dépêche du Midi
, then in a video broadcast in a report from France 3.
This video allowed the investigators of the gendarmerie to find the two accused and to prosecute them for aggravated theft in a meeting, Solveig Halloin also being prosecuted for “
degradation
” after having projected red paint on the INRA panel.
3000 euros in compensation
The lawyer of INRA, Me Cosima Ouhioun assured that the public research body which is under the double supervision of the Ministries of Agriculture and Higher Education and Research applied "
the Ethical Charter in matters of protection of animal welfare
”.
According to the lawyer, these activists are "
in total ignorance of what the research was
" stressing that these rabbits were intended "
for the study of digestive disorders in young rabbits in breeding
".
The antispeciesists were also ordered jointly and severally to pay 3,000 euros, in particular to compensate Inra for the loss of the animals and the repair of the fence as requested by the lawyer.
On the sidelines of the trial, some twenty members of this collective presented shocking photos in front of the courthouse showing in particular a cow with a porthole on a gastric compartment accompanied by the mention "
Inrae official supplier of victim financed by the State
", or an image comparing INRAE research to eugenics policy under the Nazi regime.
