Peta-Aktion. Quelle: Arturo de Albornoz/flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

Which organizations are involved in the animal rights movement?

The world’s most famous and influential organization is PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), but there are countless smaller and larger ones dedicated to the animal rights.

They sometimes set different priorities or represent different or opposite views on specific issues. They also differ in the choice of their means. The Great Ape Project (GAP) of the animal rights protagonist Peter Singer is, for example, primarily concerned with human rights for great apes, in a completely peaceful way. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an internationally active militant group of the “Animal Liberation Movement”, which carries out attacks against facilities, animal testing laboratories and fur farm animals. PETA defends the ALF and compares it with the antifascist resistance group “White Rose” and the French Resistance.

The German party “Mensch Umwelt Tierschutz” (in short: Animal Protection Party), which won 1.2% of the vote in the European Parliament in 2014, is a part of the animal rights movement and aims to achieve political aims of the movement. In 2014, the former Secretary General Bernd Mallon demanded the death penalty for animal cruelty on Facebook. The former Tierrechts-Aktion Nord (TAN), which is now called “Assoziation Dämmerung”, is a left-autonomous group from Hamburg who understands their commitment to animal rights as part of an anticapitalist struggle. The vegan diet would be a “significant step” towards the “healthier” development of the people, claims the Neo-Nazi grouping of the Nationale Sozialisten – AG Tierrechte. The esoteric-christian sect Universelles Leben, whose number is estimated in tens of thousands in Germany, has long been active in the animal rights movement and operates bioproducts under the brand name ” Gut zum Leben”.Their courtyards call themselves “Christusbetriebe”.

There are many other organizations in the German-speaking world, that bear names such as: Animal Peace, Menschen für Tierrechte – Bundesverband der Tierversuchsgegner e.V., Animal Equality, Die Tierbefreier e.V., Aktion Kirche und Tiere (Akut), Albert Schweitzer Stiftung für unsere Mitwelt, Maqi – für Tierrechte, gegen Speziesismus, AG gegen Tierversuche Universität Bielefeld, Antispeziesistische Aktion/Bündnis gegen Tierausbeutung Tübingen, Antispeziesistische Offensive Göttingen, Arbeitskreis Tierrechte & Ethik, Basisgruppe Tierrechte Wien, Berliner-Tierrechts-Aktion, Free Animal e.V., Kieler Initiative für Tierbefreiung, Hochschulgruppe Venga Bielefeld and some more.

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