Tash Peterson: As long as animals are continuing to be exploited, it will not deter me from speaking up for them. If society ignores their screams, we will continue to defend and speak out for them.
NIC WHITE: A vegan animal rights activist who invaded the field during an AFLW match has emerged from court with her mouth taped shut and animal slaughter sounds blaring. Tash Peterson, 26, ran on to Perth Stadium in the first-ever women’s Western Derby on February 15, holding a black flag reading ‘right to rescue’… Peterson walked free from Perth Magistrate’s Court with a spent conviction and a $1,800 fine over trespassing charges… She and a fellow activist stood on the court steps for several minutes with black duct tape over their mouths holding signs reading ‘it’s time to listen to the animals’.
Peterson refused to answer questions from reporters while the squeals of cows and pigs being slaughtered in Western Australian abattoirs played from nearby speakers. ‘We’re choosing not to speak today because we want people to look at what’s really happening, we’re not here for ourselves,’ a third activist said. ‘We are just a mouthpiece for the animals and we will not stop until people see what is really going on.’
Peterson told Daily Mail Australia after the protest that her sentence was ‘reasonable and expected’ but wouldn’t deter her from more protests. ‘As long as animals are continuing to be exploited, it will not deter me from speaking up for them,’ she said. ‘If society ignores their screams, we will continue to defend and speak out for them’… Peterson at the time of the Perth Stadium invasion said her arrest was actually helpful to her cause.
‘This was an opportunity to be a powerful voice for animals with a big audience and make them listen to us,’ she told Daily Mail Australia at the time. ‘It’s so effective because everyone wants to know “why are you doing something so insane?” and it gets people talking and thinking’… Peterson said her stunt was a success because dozens of people came up to her outside the ground to ask about her cause… ‘(It) led to a big conversation on animal rights’…
The protest was to support fellow activist James Marsden, the leader of animals rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), who with another activist was on trial for allegedly stealing a calf from a farm last year. ‘We believe that if an animal is sick, suffering, or dying, we have the right to help them,’ she said. Marsden, 25, was later handed a 12-months suspended sentence and Arkadiusz Swiebodzinski, 26, fined $5,000. They were found guilty of breaking into White Rocks Dairy, near Bunbury, WA, and stealing a a $1,500 fresian calf in October 2018.
‘By no means does this mean that animal rights activists are going to stop what we’re doing,’ Warden told reporters outside court. ‘This is just the start of the Right to Rescue campaign, so you’re going to be hearing a lot more about that’… DxE posted another video of Ms Peterson, filmed before the match, in which she explained what the groups ‘right to rescue’ campaign.
The video included footage of Warden carrying the calf he stole around his shoulders. ‘My friends rescued a bobby calf named Theodore from a dairy farm here in WA. Theodore was taken to a sanctuary to live out the rest of his life in peace but when the police found out, they took him back to the farm,’ Peterson said in the clip. ‘Bobby calves like Theodore are often killed at just five days old.’ SOURCE…