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About the Swedish animal rights organisation Djurrättsalliansen

The Animal Rights Alliance, Djurrättsalliansen, was founded in 2005 as a non-profit animal rights organization.

Our vision is a society free from the oppression and exploitation of animals. We work to increase awareness in regards to animal exploitation and encourage a vegan lifestyle. With this we mean: transitioning to vegan food production, abolishing the fur industry, replacing experiments on animals with animal-free models, and making sure that entertainment does not occur at the expense of animals.

We work to document, disclose and fight animal oppression. We have, for example, worked with photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, as well as Aitor Garmendia, the award-winning photographer behind Tras Los Muros (Behind the Walls).

Djurrättsalliansen (The Animal Rights Alliance) focuses on four main areas: animals in the food industry, animals that are used for clothing, animal testing, and animals used in entertainment.

Djurrättsalliansen is very proud to have Philip Wollen as the Honorary Patron of our organization.
Philip Wollen is an Australian philanthropist. He is a former Vice-President of Citibank. Phil and his partner Trix work tirelessly to help those in need and sponsor over 200 non profit organizations around the world. When Phil founded the The Winsome Constance Kindness Trust he stated it had five fingers, namely, “Children, Animals, the Ill, the Environment and Aspiring Youth”. We are very happy to have the support of Philip Wollen in our work for animals rights.


DOCUMENT THE REALITY FOR MANY ANIMALS
Djurrättsalliansen works to document Swedish animal industries in order to show the lived realities for many animals. We document, for example, Swedish pig factories, mink farms, chicken factory farms, dairy farms, and fish farms. We have worked undercover at slaughterhouses in order to obtain photographs and films, and therefore show how different animals are killed and how this is executed in an assembly-line fashion.

Our first major exposé was in 2009, when we revealed the conditions of 100 different pig factories in Sweden, an exposé that many may remember as the “Pig Scandal”.

For the first time in Sweden, the public was able to gain a comprehensive insight into the Swedish pig industry and the exploitation of pigs made it onto the agenda. We have, since then, regularly released new documentation from the Swedish pig industry, and our material can be viewed on our campaign site: “Ett liv som gris” (A Life as a Pig).

For a year and a half, Djurrättsalliansen mapped out the Swedish fur industry through reading inspection protocols, environmental court orders, and research reports. We visited a large number of Sweden’s fur farms, where the animals’ living standards were documented. Our documentation received a lot of media attention in 2010 as we were able to show a side to the Swedish fur farms that had never been seen before. Our documentation material is available at our campaign site: “Sveket mot minkarna” (The Betrayal of the Minks).

We have revealed the living conditions of turkeys at Ingelsta Turkeys, a Swedish company that claims to put “ethics and animal care in the forefront”. Our material showed instead the reality of congestion, dirt, injured, sick and dead birds- far from the self-image that Ingelsta Turkeys attempt to portray. See the turkeys’ reality here.

Djurrättsalliansen have assembled a large part of our material on the website djurfabriken.se, where we show how animals are treated in various industries and at slaughterhouses.

Djurrättsalliansen even infiltrated and revealed a network of people that engaged in the sexual abuse of animals in Sweden, an investigation that made a major impact in the media and pressured the Minister of Rural Affairs at the time, to promise the people a prohibition. This in turn led to the fact that it is now illegal to sexually abuse animals in Sweden.

In 2021 Djurrättsalliansen revealed a Swedish KRAV-slaughterhouse (the KRAV label stands for good animal welfare/organic) with videos taken with hidden cameras. The investigation received enormous attention and the slaughterhouse closed down only two days after the investigation was published. Read more here.

REVEAL
Our work for the animals, our investigations, and exposés have resulted in great media attention over the years, both nationally and internationally. We believe that it is important to show what the reality for animals actually looks like, behind closed doors, high fences, and the propaganda and beautified images often portrayed through the advertising done by animal industries. The public have a right to see how animal industries work and how animals both live and die becoming different products, in order to have the opportunity to make a choice whether or not to support them. After our successful animal testing campaigns during 2019, we were even nominated for an international prize – The Lush Prize.

 

FIGHT
Djurrättsalliansen organizes demonstrations, manifestations, flyer distributions, debates, lectures, information tables, food samping/tastings, film screenings, and other activities. We try to make people aware of how animals are exploited in today’s society and how they can change the situation for many animals by changing their own lifestyle. Between 2007 to 2018, Djurrättsalliansen organized 13 Vegomässor (vegan fairs) and were first in Sweden to work with this concept. The fair attracted thousands of visitors and encouraged many to become vegetarians or vegans. We have printed and spread hundreds of thousands of pamphlets on veganism and have distributed them by universities and food distributions in order to get people to try vegan food in a positive way. We try to create an opinion that can influence society in a positive direction for the animals.

By examining animal industries and creating awareness about the lived realities for many animals, standing up for animals in the media and societal debates, investing in outreach work, and getting more and more people to stand up for animals, as well as get engaged in the cause- we question the current view on animals and mean that their exploitation must end. We have, thus far, won many victories for the animals, and we will continue to do so. After regular protests at circuses, a ban on elephants and sea lions was enforced in 2018.

Through dialogues and protests, we have been able to get most of the country’s retail chains and many individual clothing shops and clothing brands to become fur-free, including companies such as Peak Performance, Fjällräven, and Stadium. In Sweden, it is illegal to force-feed geese and ducks in order to obtain their livers. Despite this, it is both imported and sold in Sweden. In order to bring attention to this, Djurrättsalliansen have led the campaign “Foie gras-fritt Sverige” (Foie gras-free Sweden) and have got over 100 restaurants and boutiques to stop selling foie gras.

Djurrättsalliansen were able to reveal plans for a new animal testing center in the middle of July 2019, and started the campaign “Stoppa SWECCLIM” (Stop SWECCLIM). Behind the project was the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, together with Uppsala University, the Swedish Veterinary Institute, Karolinska Institutet, Unviersity of Gothenburg/Sahlgrenska University Hospital, and Linköping University. The idea was to create a new national infrastructure for clinical and experimental studies on larger animals such as primates, dogs, and cats. They expected to perform up to 600 animal experiments every year, and to some extent function as a contract laboratory where different companies could rent a spot in order to experiment on animals. The universities behind the new animal testing center had applied for 90 million Swedish crowns (SEK) from the Swedish Research Council, the largest funder for government research. Djurrättsalliansen had a dialogue with them and submitted a protest list with 47,481 signatures against the plans at SWECCLIM. At the end of September, the Swedish Research Council announced that they had rejected the application.

SAVE ANIMALS
Djurrättsalliansen have been involved in various rescue efforts involving individual animals several times, including three monkeys from an animal testing laboratory in Stockholm. In December 2009 and together with Animal Defenders International, we managed to save the monkeys Bacill, Bacillusk, and Baloo. Instead of being killed after the experiments were finished, the monkeys were able to retire and are today living at a sanctuary in England. They are ambassadors for those primates that are still exploited in painful experiments. In 2014, with the help of Philip Wollen, we succeeded in closing Sweden’s last chinchilla farm used for fur production, and were able to save and rehome the 243 chinchillas that were living there.

There are many different ways to be active in the Animal Rights Alliance. The point is that everyone can find ways to participate in our organization that suit them. And don’t believe that your help doesn’t make a difference: it certainly does. The animals need every one of us to take up the fight for them. Together we make a difference!

Here you can see pictures from some of our investigations and from our work.

Please contact us if you are interested in getting involved.
Phone: +4672 300 39 00
E-mail: [email protected]

Support our work with a donation:
PLUSGIRO ACCOUNT: 42 54 11-6
IBAN: SE98 9500 0099 6042 0425 4116
BIC/SWIFT: NDEASESS
NAME OF ACCOUNT: Djurrättsalliansen
BANK: Nordea

PAYPAL: Donate through Paypal, click here. (or see right corner in the bottom of the page)