Court to rule if chimp has human rights

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Link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,2047533,00.html#article_continue

 

Court to rule if chimp has human rights

 

Kate Connolly in Berlin

Sunday April 1, 2007

The Observer

 

He recognises himself in the mirror, plays hide-and-seek and breaks

into fits of giggles when tickled. He is also our closest evolutionary

cousin.

 

A group of world leading primatologists argue that this is proof

enough that Hiasl, a 26-year-old chimpanzee, deserves to be treated

like a human. In a test case in Austria, campaigners are seeking to

ditch the 'species barrier' and have taken Hiasl's case to court. If

Hiasl is granted human status - and the rights that go with it - it

will signal a victory for other primate species and unleash a wave of

similar cases.

 

Hiasl's story began in 1982 when, as a baby, he was taken from Sierra

Leone and smuggled into Austria in a crate with seven other chimps

destined for a vivisection laboratory east of Vienna. But customs

officers seized the crate and Hiasl was sent to an animal sanctuary.

Now the sanctuary faces bankruptcy and Hiasl could be sent to the

Baxter vivisection laboratory after all. Seeking to save Hiasl, who

likes painting, kissing visitors and watching wildlife programmes, an

Austrian businessman has donated £3,400 towards his upkeep.

 

However, unless Hiasl has a legal guardian who can manage the money it

will go to the receivers. As only humans have a right to legal

guardians, his campaigners say it is necessary for Hiasl's survival to

prove that he is one of us. Primatologists and experts - from the

world's most famous primate campaigner, Jane Goodall, to Professor

Volker Sommer, a renowned wild chimp expert at University College

London - will give evidence in the case, which is due to come to court

in Vienna within the next few months.

 

One of their central arguments will be that a chimpanzee's DNA is

96-98.4 per cent similar to that of humans - closer than the

relationship between donkeys and horses. They will cite recent

findings that wild apes hunt with home-made spears and can fight

battles and make peace. In New Zealand, apes - gorillas, orang utans,

chimpanzees and bonobos - were granted special rights as 'non-human

hominids' in 1999 to grant protection from maltreatment, slavery,

torture, death and extinction.

 

Sommer, an evolutionary anthropologist, said: 'It's untenable to talk

of dividing humans and humanoid apes because there are no clear-cut

criteria - neither biological, nor mental, nor social.' Paula Stibbe,

a British woman, has applied to be named Hiasl's legal guardian. She

said: 'He is a colourful character with lots of energy. The least we

can do for him is give him ... a future in society.' Barbara Bartl,

the judge and an animal rights campaigner, has stalled proceedings

until documents are provided proving Hiasl has, as his friends say,

the status of an asylum-seeker, having been abducted illegally from

Sierra Leone.

 

If Hiasl is granted human status, Martin Balluch, of the Association

against Animal Factories, who has worked to bring the case, wants him

to sue the vivisection laboratory. He said: 'We argue that he's a

person and he's capable of owning something himself, as opposed to

being owned, and that he can manage his money. This means he can start

a court case against Baxter, which at the very least should mean his

old age pension is secure.'