Friends,

 

      We are going through a very important moment in our campaign against animals being kept and performing in circuses. Bills demanding that circuses are forbidden to exploit animals all over the Brazilian territory are at  present in the Constitution and Justice Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.

       However, there is a bill brought to the Senate by Senator Álvaro Dias from Paraná - Brazil, that proposes circuses to be registered at the Ministry of Culture and the presence of animals in circuses to be regularized.

This is such an outrage! The senator is misinformed, for he talks about animals being kept in circuses suffering no ill-treatment! In order to justify his proposal he mentions the importance of circus animals to children! One wonders whether the Senator considers educating children, either showing them an elephant standing on a small stool or taking a newborn animal from its desperate mother, because this is what happens to chimpanzees and other animals.

       We are going to contact Senator Álvaro Dias and expose to him the true conditions of animals kept in circuses, how exploited they are and the cruel situations they are submitted to – pain-stimulus-based training, food privation, being caged and chained.

        We are going to ask the senator to withdraw and modify Bill 397/03. It is important to emphasize that we are not against circuses, we simply demand respect for animals. We support a modern kind of circus with creative and talented performers. A circus without animals being exploited and submitted by suffering.

Regards,

 

Andréa Lambert

ANIDA – Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

andrealambert@terra.com.br

 

 

 

 

             SENATE BILL Nº 397, 2003

 

 

This Bill rules about the act of registering circuses in the Ministry of Culture and about the measures for the protection of circus animals and some other main provisions.

 

The Congress decrees that:

 

First Article – The circus is one of the Brazilian cultural heritage assets, as stated in article 216 of the Federal Constitution, and it has its activity guaranteed all over the Brazilian territory.

 

Second Article – The denomination “circus” shall depend on the show being registered in the Ministry of Culture.

 

Sole Paragraph – Registration shall be granted only for shows that have at least fifty percent of circus activity.

 

Third Article – The registration certificate, issued by the Ministry of Culture, is an able document for the settling and performing of circus shows in any town, provided they abide by state and municipal legislation.

 

Fourth Article – It is mandatory that circuses keep their animals healthy and safe, not allowing them to be ill-treated or to jeopardize physical integrity of human beings and other animals.