The undercover investigation has ignited a wave of protests, along with a court case that recently ended in a shocking verdict, one that raises serious questions about whose side the law is really on. It ruled the video footage not be distributed and be removed from the internet. The court’s verdict lays bare a grim truth: our justice system often punishes those who expose cruelty, while those who commit it walk free.
PALA NAJANA: Animal rights activists Anna and Hendrik did something most of us would never dare. In the middle of the night, they broke into a slaughterhouse in Germany that proudly claims to “prioritize animal welfare”. Wearing gas masks, they descended into CO₂ chambers — places designed to stay hidden from public view — and planted cameras.
What those cameras recorded is unbearable. This is the first time the inner workings of these chambers have been revealed to the public — and the images have since shaken the country. The footage was broadcast on Germany’s largest public television channel and covered in leading national newspapers.
Each year, more than 40 million pigs are slaughtered in Germany, and over 1.5 billion worldwide. The most common stunning method, both in Germany and globally, uses CO₂ gas. So it’s important to understand how it works.
Anna and Hendrik’s undercover investigation has ignited a wave of protests, along with a court case that recently ended in a shocking verdict — one that raises serious questions about whose side the law is really on.
The stunning system my friends filmed is known as a “paternoster” system. Their footage is the first of its kind in Germany to show its operation.
Once confined in the gondolas, the pigs are slowly lowered into a pit filled with a suffocating atmosphere of over 85% CO₂. By the time they reach the bottom, they are trapped in a nightmare from which there is no escape.
The effects of CO₂ on the pigs are catastrophic. As soon as they inhale the gas, it reacts with saliva and turns into acid, burning the mucous membranes of their noses and throats. The pain is immediate and searing…
Despite the horrors, CO₂ stunning remains standard practice — not only in Germany but across much of the world. Similar abuses have been exposed elsewhere: in the UK, activists occupied the roof of a slaughterhouse to protest pig gas chambers, while hidden cameras exposed the gassing of egg-laying hens.
And it isn’t just pigs and chickens. All types of farmed animals endure unspeakable cruelties, hidden behind comforting labels like “free range” or “humanely raised”…
Billions of animals spend their entire lives in conditions of exploitation and abuse so severe that their final suffocation can seem almost merciful by comparison. That’s why investigations like Anna and Hendrik’s don’t just expose one killing method — they force us to confront the ethics of animal farming itself…
The slaughterhouse owners filed a lawsuit — an attempt to silence Anna and Hendrik with crushing legal costs… in a shocking twist, a court… ruled that Anna must not distribute the footage and even pressure her NGO to remove it from the internet. Other people and independent media can still show it, but the activists themselves are silenced.
Anna has called the ruling an attack on free speech. “What is trespassing compared to the death struggle of the pigs?” she asked. Clearly, undercover investigations are the only way to reveal what really happens inside “meat processing plants”. Without them, the industry would remain a black box.
The court’s verdict lays bare a grim truth: our justice system often punishes those who expose cruelty, while those who commit it walk free…
Despite the court ruling and the slaughterhouse’s attempts to intimidate them, Anna and Hendrik — backed by Animal Rights Watch (ARIWA) and countless allies — are refusing to back down. They’ve announced they will appeal, if necessary, all the way to Germany’s highest court. Their undercover investigation has already been a massive success, sparking outrage and debate across Germany, from social media to street protests in Berlin and at the very slaughterhouse they filmed. SOURCE…
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