{"id":752954,"date":"2018-04-22T12:03:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T12:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arkcenter.us\/?p=752954"},"modified":"2018-04-22T12:05:09","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T12:05:09","slug":"chained-beaten-whipped-and-exploited-like-slaves-the-hidden-horrors-of-indias-temple-elephants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=752954","title":{"rendered":"Chained, beaten, whipped and exploited like slaves: The hidden horrors of India&#8217;s temple elephants"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<blockquote  class=\"bs-quote bs-quote-1 bsq-t1 bsq-s1 bsq-left\">\n\t\t<div class=\"quote-content\">\n\t\t\t<p>The young elephant had been snatched from his family and spent the next 50 years forced by his handler to beg in the street, starved, frightened and suffering infected wounds to his flesh.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>JANE DALTON:<\/strong> <em>&#8216;When Audrey Gaffney first read about Raju, an elephant kept in chains with spikes embedded in his ankles, she couldn\u2019t stop the tears pouring down her face. \u201cIn fact, I cried again and again: I found over the next few days I just couldn\u2019t get this story out of my head, I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about Raju,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe the cruelty of my race&#8221;&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>The young elephant had been snatched from his family, she explains \u2013 his mother either would have been killed or spent weeks searching and crying for him \u2013 and he was beaten into submission. Raju then spent the next 50 years forced by his handler to beg in the street, starved, frightened and suffering infected wounds to his flesh. By the time of his rescue, he had resorted to eating plastic and paper&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Taken from their families in the wild, shackled, beaten, whipped and exploited like slaves, these elephants \u2013 ironically India\u2019s icons \u2013 are painted and dressed in colourful decorations, to be paraded in regular festivals and processions organised by religious temples. They are the world\u2019s forgotten elephant victims of mankind&#8217;.<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/long_reads\/indian-temple-captive-elephants-kerala-chained-beaten-whipped-died-modi-a8313696.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>SOURCE&#8230;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED VIDEO:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dudRNRt--QY?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JANE DALTON: &#8216;When Audrey Gaffney first read about Raju, an elephant kept in chains with spikes embedded in his ankles, she couldn\u2019t stop the tears pouring down her face. \u201cIn fact, I cried again and again: I found over the next few days I just couldn\u2019t get this story out of my head, I couldn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":752959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,17,23,25],"tags":[27,28,30],"class_list":["post-752954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-environment","category-rights","category-welfare","tag-cruelty","tag-entertainment","tag-exploitation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=752954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":752958,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752954\/revisions\/752958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/752959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=752954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=752954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=752954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}