Shut down: Activists have blockaded a Benalla abattoir on the morning of Thursday, April 13, shutting down production. Photo: Farm Transparency Project
Seven people have been charged after about 30 protesters chained themselves to equipment inside Benalla Abattoirs in the early hours of Thursday morning.
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The animal rights advocates entered the abattoirs in the early hours of this morning, and chained themselves to a gas chamber used to paralyse pigs before they are killed.
Police were called to the Firth Rd property early on Thursday after protesters chained themselves to machinery at about 4am.
Police said seven people, three men and four women, aged between 23 and 53 from Melbourne, Tasmania and NSW, were charged with trespass offences.
They were bailed to attend Benalla Magistrates’ court at later dates.
It is the second protest this week in Benalla after a munitions factory was blockaded on Tuesday.
Some protesters climbed on to the roof, dropping a large banner that read ‘Stop gassing pigs for pork’, while others blocked the narrow chamber known as the ‘race’ where pigs are herded through into the gas chamber.
A small number of protesters chained themselves inside the carbon dioxide gas chamber.
Animal campaigner and advocate Chris Delforce was locked inside one of the gondolas used to lower the pigs into a deep pit, which is pumped full of carbon dioxide.
Shut down: Activists have blockaded a Benalla abattoir on the morning of Thursday, April 13, shutting down production. Photo: Farm Transparency Project
Earlier this month, Mr Delforce’s organisation Farm Transparency Project was behind the release of footage that showed the final moments of pigs inside these gas chambers.
The group is calling for an immediate ban on the use of carbon dioxide gas chambers, “at least until a full inquiry can take place”, Mr Delforce said.
Mr Delforce said the Australian Pork Limited chief executive would not speak to the protesters and both the Victorian and federal ministers for agriculture had ignored requests to meet.
He was arrested inside the facility in the early hours of Thursday morning and has since been released on bail with the condition he does not go within 200 meters of the Benalla Abattoir.
He said he was due to face court in September on trespassing charges.
Executive Director of Farm Transparency Project Chris Delforce was arrested int he early hours of Thursday, April 13 after chaining himself to equipment inside the Benalla Abattoir.
Photo by
Simon Ruppert
He said a number of protesters were in the passageway which leads pigs up into that chamber, and others were in the holding pens, while others were on the roof and protesting outside.
“Police have come into the gondola cut through the chain that we’d wrapped around it, took me from inside the gondola and escorted me out,” Mr Delforce said.
He said the goal of the actions was that the group wants to see an end to the use of gas chambers for pigs in Australia.
“This is the industries most humane method they have for stunning pigs before slaughter and it’s absolutely horrific,” he said.
“Anyone who sees… footage will understand why we had to take this drastic action. We first exposed this nine years ago, nothing has changed.
“The industry has doubled down and are building bigger chambers the government is doing nothing so we took it upon ourselves to physically shut this machinery down and if that’s what we have to keep doing so be it.”
A spokesperson for the abattoir said police had to climb into the chambers to remove protesters, which he said was “totally wrong”, and that the protesters had “behaved appallingly”, but provided no further comment.
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