Protests
against Mauritius at
tourism fair in Milano
IBIT is the most important international tourism fair in Italy,
visited by more than 100.000 people: workers of this field or simply travellers.
Of course BIT is where Mauritius has a stand and tries to show their face
of wonderful seas, beaches, palms... hiding the suffering of thousands
of monkeys every year sent to vivisection labs. So we decided to name
and shame Mauritius during all the 4 days of the fair.
On saturday the 18th of february about 25 protesters met in front of the
gates of the fair, showing banners, placards, photos of monkeys in vivisection
labs and using a megaphone. Thousands of leaflets have been handed to
visitors, making it sure they would be aware of the
boycott against this island. A regional radio also gave some minutes to
an activist to speak about the demo and why boycotting Mauritus.
A small group of activists managed to sneak in the fair and
leafletted near the Mauritius stand for half an hour. Then they decided
to go in and ask what they think of the primate trade. The workers in
the stand, part of Italy's MTPA (Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority),
knew very well about the campaign and said they are very concerned about
this situation, because is giving Mauritus a bad name.
It seems that Italy's MTPA is pressuring the government to
solve this problem. After leaving our leaflets near those promoting tourism
to this country activists moved to the Hotelplan stand.
Hotelplan is one of Europe's biggest tour operators, and is leading the
travels to Mauritius from Italy. They had a lot of demos in front of their
offices, so they knew very well about the campaign. The workers said Hotelplan
is not happy being associated with primate torture and is already doing
their pressure on the Mauritius government too.
During the following days activists quietly leafletted inside and outside
the fair, reaching thousands of potential Mauritius collaborators and
customers.
On monday evening at a gala night promoting tourism to Mauritius, the
Vice Prime Minister of this country was present and had a speech. But
even here he was confronted with the serious problems they are facing
if they want to continue supporting the primate trade: in fact among partecipants
there was an operator supporting the Mauritius boycott, who went to talk
with the Minister and gave him a copy of RSPCA's report on the monkey
farms in his country.
Ther minister was confronted with the fact that even among travel agents
and tour operators Mauritius is seen as a problem and the boycott can
spread and become public and visible very easily.
It's clearly time for Mauritius to take a serious decision and close down
those evil monkey farms!
