RELIGION & ANIMALS
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
Islamic fundamentalists on April
19 capped two weeks of railing against the
appearance of scantily clad performers b y
torching the stage and tents of the New Opera
Circus, killing a boy and a bear, as it per-
formed outside the Cox’s Bazar resort near
Eidgaon village in Bangladesh. The mob also
stabbed a tiger, an elephant, and various other
animals before police arrived, arresting three
assailants. Officials of Cox’s Bazar said they
had been unable to persuade the circus, from
the Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh, to
pack up and leave.
The National Hindu Youth Union
of Nepal on May 10 asked the small nation
to strike en masse on May 16, to protest
health minister Padma Ratna Tuladhar’s sug-
gestion that Moslem residents should be
allowed to eat beef. Nepal’s five-year-old con-
stitution designates cattle as the national ani-
mals and protects them from slaughter;
offenders may be jailed for up to 12 years. Of
the Nepalese population of circa 20 million,
about 90% are Hindus, 7% are Buddhists, and
Moslems make up circa 2%.
Omar Hassan al-Bashir, president
of the Sudan, on May 6 asked the governors
of the 26 Sudanese states to collect the sheep
skins left behind by celebrants of the Moslem
feast of Eid al-Adha, so that they can be sold
to help finance warfare against the rebel Sudan
People’s Liberation Army, which has been try-
ing to hack out a new nation for the dark-
skinned animist minority. Most of the latter
live in the southern part of the Sudan, where
they are frequent targets of discrimination. The
sheep are slaughtered to mark the end of a fast.
Ecologist Wally Petersen of the
Kommetjie Environmental Awareness
G r o u p, based in Cape Town, South Africa,
on May 8 told media that at least four Cape
Peninsula baboons seen with missing front
paws were probable victims of witch-doctors,
who lure baboons to cars with food, catch their
paws in the windows as they reach for it, and
amputate the paws for use as charms.
