Tell Assistant U.S. Attorney to Prosecute Egregious Abuse at AgriProcessors

URGENT- Please sign this petition to save animals from the cruel methods of killing used by AgriProcessors. Postville, Iowa based AgriProcessors, the world's largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse, kills animals while they are fully conscious. Some of the ways in while they kill animals are by electrocution or slitting of the throat. These animals are fully conscious and endure extreme amounts of pain in their last minutes before they die. Some of these animals even attempt to flee. Cows are put into a machine that flips them upside down, exposing their necks. Workers at AgriProcessors slit cows throats and remove their trachea while fully conscious. Some workers even kick blood into the faces of the dying animals. Please sign this petition to help save these animals from these terrible practices. Rabbis and the USDA have spoken out against these practices. Visit the website for more information. This website also contains an undercover video taken by a PETA investigator in AgriProcessor's slaughterhouse.
http://www.goveg.com/feat/agriprocessors/index.asp

here are a few quotes on what is happening at AgriProcessors:

President of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement (in a message sent to every Conservative rabbi, representing one-third of Jewish Americans):

"[T]he scenes recorded are not what shehitah should be, nor does it correspond to the Jewish way of treating animals … When a company purporting to be kosher violates the prohibition against tza'ar ba'alei hayyim, causing pain to one of God's living creatures, that company must answer to the Jewish community, and ultimately, to God."

Dr. Bernard Rollin, Ph.D., Colorado State University, farmed animal expert

"[W]hat was depicted on this videotape is one of the most atrocious incidents I have ever witnessed. This plant has shown itself unworthy of even minimal trust, and should be closed down."

Dr. Lester Friedlander, D.V.M., former USDA slaughter inspector (including kosher)

"The footage captured by PETA represents the most egregious violation of the USDA Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA) I have ever witnessed."

Dr. Temple Grandin, Ph.D., kosher slaughter expert, USDA slaughter consultant

"I thought it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe it. I've been in at least 30 other kosher slaughter plants, and I had never ever seen that kind of procedure done before."

Dr. Chaim Milikowsky, Talmud Scholar, Bar Ilan University, Israel

"It very well may be that any plant performing such types of shechita is guilty of hillul hashem—the desecration of God's name-for to insist that God cares only about his ritual law and not about his moral law is to desecrate His Name."

Rabbi David Rosen, Former Chief Rabbi of Ireland

"I've been in many slaughterhouses in my time, and I've never seen anything like that."

Holly Cheever, D.V.M., large animal veterinarian

"[T]he cattle depicted in this distressing film footage … unequivocally and unarguably indicate that the cattle were conscious and suffering an agonal and inhumane death."

Gary Dahl, Representative, USDA slaughterhouse inspector of 21 years

"[T]he suffering of these animals was obvious, as was their consciousness after they had their tracheas removed."

Shimon Cohen, shechita UK (U.K.-based kosher slaughter group)

"I don't know what that is, but it's not shechita."

Rabbi Ezra Raful, Israel's Chief Rabbinate

"You see there, it looks like he ripped out the trachea and esophagus. We do not allow the animal to be touched after the shehita until the main part of the bleeding stops …"

Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz, Central Conference of American Rabbis' Task Force on Kashrut

"The suffering of these animals during slaughter is sickening. Death is neither quick nor merciful. If this is kosher, then we have a big problem."

Patty Judge, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture

"It's disturbing. Certainly it's nothing I would condone, or any of my meat inspectors or veterinarians would condone."

Rabbi Avrom Pollak, Ph.D., President of Star-K (kosher certification)

"None of the practices seen on the video apply in any places Star-K is associated with."

Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation

"The abuses in this ostensibly 'kosher' slaughterhouse are sickening …"

Dr. Brenda Forsythe, M.S., Ph.D., D.V.M., Expert, Large Animal Behavior

"In my expert opinion, turning frightened animals upside down for the convenience of the slaughterer, cutting body parts out of conscious animals, dumping struggling dying animals out of chutes onto a blood soaked kill floor, using electric cattle prods on immobilized animals, and suspending heavy animals by a single limb prior to unconsciousness all result in unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress and are violations of humane slaughtering practices."

Rabbi Joel Rembaum, Temple Beth Am, Los Angeles

"[A]ccording to CJLS [Committee on Jewish Law and Standards] standards, even with the new policies in force by the OU at the Postville plant, the meat that comes from there is not kosher."

Dr. Peggy Larson, D.V.M., M.S., J.D.

"[A]ll aspects of slaughter in this plant are unacceptable and must be corrected, from handling of the animals in the runway to the pen/chute that turns them upside down, to ripping out tracheas in a conscious animal, to dumping them, still conscious, onto the ground. This plant requires full scale change in handling and slaughter."

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Executive Vice President, The Orthodox Union

Has said that he found the procedure seen in our investigation footage "especially inhumane" and "generally unacceptable."