A United Cause

 It has been two weeks since we’ve started our online petition and Brisbane-streets campaign and results have been very uplifting. We have been getting people from all over the world coming to our site and signing it. The objective of this petition drive is to generate greater awareness on this matter (many many people still do not know that cats and dogs are being farmed for fur and meat!) and also to gather as much support (as many voices – so every signature counts!) as possible with the objective of getting Chinese authorities to ban this trade on grounds of inhumanity. 

 

Announcement #1

We saw a sudden increase in the number of supporters from France. Thank you very much for translating our petition and for telling your community about this matter. We’ve also had many people blogging and posting this link in their facebook profile. Here is an estimate of the number of signatures we’ve been getting:

Australia – 28; Austria – 5; Albama – 1; Argentina – 1 ; Belgium – 15; Brazil – 1; Canada – 18; Cyprus – 1; Denmark – 1; Falkland islands – 1; France – 54; Finland – 1; Germany – 32; Greece – 5; Italy – 6; Ireland – 1; Japan – 1; Malta – 1; Morocco – 2; Mexico – 2; Netherlands – 5; New Caledonia – 1; Norway – 1; Peru – 1; Portugal – 1; Switzerland – 1; South Africa – 4; Singapore – 8; Sweden – 2; Serbia – 2; Spain – 3; Trinidad – 1; USA – 79; UK –  19; Venezuela – 1 

Although this is still a far cry from our goal of 1000 signatures per country, I think it is very encouraging that we are reaching people from all around the world. People with internet access, after learning about this, can then spread the news to their local community. If you would like to help us collect signatures at your local community – please send your signatures to PO Box 895, Indooroopilly QLD 4068. You can obtain a copy of our petition from here. To reach out to non-English speaking countries, please help to translate our petition and send us the link to your site.I’ve included a Chinese version of our petition. 

Announcement #2

On writing effective letters
1) Writing letters to local authorities and embassies in your country
You can customise the letter such that it addresses your country’s problems, listing all the reasons why you feel that as a citizen of your country, you are against this practice. A good example can be obtained here. Again, if you need help translating your letter to Chinese, please email stopliveskinning@gmail.com. 
2) Writing letters to targetted embassies (e.g. all Chinese embassies) in selected countries, including your own
To maximise the effectiveness of this letter, petition signatures can be very useful. You will be writing on behalf of all the people who signed the petition and this makes it much harder for the authorities to ignore the letter. The letter should reflect accurately the petition objectives. For example: In this case, we want the Chinese authorities to acknowledge that live skinning is inhumane and on such grounds, the skinning of cats and dogs for fur has to be banned.