On Sunday Let the Animals Live motioned the Rishon Magistrates Court, seeking an injunction that would stop Weizmann Institute from continuing the experiment exposed by the association's covert investigation.

In its lawsuit, delivered through lawyers Michael Sfarad and Natalie Rosen, Let the Animals Live argues that the experiment constitutes abuse, cruelty and torture of the animals "participating" in it, and therefore constitutes a crime. The association also claims that the experiment does not meet the criteria that the law governing vivisection sets, because the suffering caused to animals is not minimized; because there are non-invasive alternatives to the experiment, that would not cause suffering to the animals; and because the cruelty to the animals is not proportional to the benefit from the experiment.

The association also claims that the monkeys are held in conditions and treated in a manner that violates the rules and regulations governing their living conditions that forbid, among other things, water deprivation and isolation.

An expert opinion from zoologist Dr Tamar Ron, a world expert on monkeys, is appended to the lawsuit. She writes that the monkeys are subject to "terrible abuse" and to living conditions and "training" processes that are "cruel, causing them constant intense distress and physical and mental suffering." Dr. Ron also writes that much of the suffering could have been prevented.

"Any person with a basic sense of morality and humanity would be outraged at the horrors exposed in this motion," the lawsuit states. "One doesn't have to be a jurist, professor of ethics or morality, or even a vegetarian to be revolted by the tremendous suffering felt by the unfortunate monkeys held captive in the bowels of laboratories. One just has to be a human being."

The candid photographs taken by Let the Animals Live expose the worst sort of abuse of these monkeys. They are kept captive in isolation, in tiny cages, without any means of distraction, in a tiny room, for years on end. The monkeys are in a constant state of fear and are handled by untrained people who treat them with brutality. For the experiments the monkeys are strapped down in the "monkey chair", which prevents them from moving, for hours on end. In this chair they undergo "training" inside a dark room. The monkeys are almost entirely deprived of water: they are given only tiny amounts only if they perform the "training" correctly.

Let the Animals Live is determined to use every legal means at its disposal to stop these horrifying experiments. We shall act fearlessly to rescue the monkeys from the hell in which they are captive, and to cause legislative amendments that will protect lab animals. 

For more details on the findings of the covert investigation, and to see a video on the topic, please visit the Let the Animals Live website:
http://www.letlive.org.il/english/article.php?id=173

For more details, please contact Let the Animals Live spokeswoman Eti Altmanat 050-5358421.