Czech animal rights group to mark World Day Against Animal Experiments

Thursday marks International Day Against Animal Experiments, a day when animal rights activists around the world demonstrate against the use of laboratory animals in science and for the testing of cosmetics and other products. The Czechs may be a nation of animal lovers, but animal rights is not very high on the agenda - this is after all a country where vegetarianism is rare and where women wear fur coats in the winter with impunity. Jan Lorenc is from the Czech animal rights organisation Freedom for Animals, earlier we asked him what his organisation was planning to mark this world day of action for animals.

Czech animal rights group to mark World Day Against Animal Experiments

"Actions against the whole problem of animal experiments which are frequently used in science and the testing of products and so on. We will carry out some action against some companies which are known as animal experiments companies."

This is a country where most people eat meat, vegetarianism isn't very popular, many people wear fur coats, how much sympathy is there for animal rights here?

"Some problems are popular. For example the import of Polish horses for meat - most people are against this, and this is a 'popular' problem. And in this case, the people are very against, and this is also the case for animal experiments for cosmetics. But concerning more difficult problems, people tend to be neutral."

That was Jan Lorenc from the Czech animal rights organisation Freedom for Animals. For more information about the organisation see the website www.svobodazvirat.cz.