Photo Op: PETA Protesters Clad in Hazmat Suits to Hit Jatinegara Market, Urge Shoppers to Go Vegan

Photo Op: PETA Protesters Clad in Hazmat Suits to Hit Jatinegara Market, Urge Shoppers to Go Vegan

What:             A group of PETA supporters, dressed in hazmat suits and bearing signs proclaiming, “Live-Animal Markets Are Cruel and Deadly,” will gather outside Jatinegara Market on Tuesday to remind everyone that filthy live-animal markets like this one have apocalyptic consequences—including by creating hotspots for potentially deadly zoonotic diseases. The demonstrators will point out that the majority of diseases that have caused pandemics or epidemics in recent years originated in animals before being transmitted to humans—including COVID-19, AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Zika—and urge everyone to help spare the lives of humans and other animals by going vegan.

“Both cruelty and dangerous diseases run rampant at these squalid live-animal markets, which confine terrified bats, monkeys, and many other species in severely crowded, filthy cages and play Russian roulette with public health in the process,” says PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “Deadly pandemics are inevitable as long as humans continue to breed, confine, and eat animals, and PETA is urging people to please go vegan, for everyone’s sake.”

Where:           Jatinegara Market, Jl. Jatinegara Bar, No. 10, Rt. 10/Rw. 3, Bali Mester, Kecamatan Jatinegara, Kota Jakarta Timur, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 13320

When:             Tuesday, November 12, 12 noon

Interviews will be available on site and remotely.

 Credit: PETA

Why:               PETA notes that most scientists believe that COVID-19—which has infected more than 6 million individuals and killed over 161,000 in Indonesia—originated in a live-animal market in China, where live and dead animals from a wide variety of species are sold alongside produce. PETA investigations into live-animal markets around the world have revealed that sick and stressed animals of uncertain origin were packed closely together in stressful environments, often in filthy, feces-encrusted cages so small they could barely turn around. Dead squirrels, civet cats, bats, birds, and rats were sold in open-air markets without any apparent hygiene protocols.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information, please visit PETAAsia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

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