Wayne describes how the prosecutor in the case hugged him at the end of the trial and says the case revolves around a simple question: “Are the living creatures of this Earth property or are they living creatures that deserve some form of dignity and respect?”
Wayne and Rain...
Animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung has been convicted on felony
charges of burglary and larceny for removing a sick baby goat from a
goat meat farm in North Carolina in 2018. Hsiung is the co-founder
of the animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere. He was
given a suspended sentence and 24 months probation. He describes how
the prosecutor in the case hugged him at the end of the trial and
says the case revolves around a simple question: “Are the living
creatures of this Earth property or are they living creatures that
deserve some form of dignity and respect?”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org. I’m Amy
Goodman with Juan González. In North Carolina, an animal rights
activist has been convicted on felony charges of burglary and
larceny for removing a sick baby goat from a goat meat farm. Wayne
Hsiung was given a suspended sentence and 24 months probation. The
cofounder of the animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere
was arrested in 2018 for taking the baby goat from the Sospiro Goat
Ranch in North Carolina in a direct action that the group
livestreamed in an effort to expose animal cruelty. In a moment,
Wayne will join us. But first, I want to go back to what happened on
that night in 2018. Wayne Hsiung spoke on a livestream as he drove
toward the farm.
WAYNE HSIUNG: The plan is we’re going to park the car outside of the
farm, make a little U-turn, get the car ready to leave. We are going
to go in, document the conditions. We’re going to have dog treats.
We’ve actually tried this before, in the past. But we have a huge
number of dog treats in our pants because we know these barking dogs
are going to need something to calm them down if we’re going to stop
them from alerting the farm. The farm security is just a few hundred
feet from where the goats are so that’s another reason this is
extremely dangerous.
If we need to make a getaway, we’re actually going to have to make a
run down a hill—just changed my four-wheel drive to four-wheel
low—we’re going to have to make a run down a hill, jump onto a tree
stump and then jump across an electrified fence in order to get out.
If we have to do that with a goat, we will do it. But we are going
to do whatever we can to make sure at least one of these animals
gets out.
For those of you who don’t know what open rescue is, the idea behind
open rescue is we believe what we’re doing is right, that there is
nothing wrong with trying to take an animal from harm’s way. Many of
you know I have been accused of being a terrorist, a criminal, I’m
being sued by a major turkey farm, all for taking animals who are
quivering in fear and pain to the vet. That’s all we’re going to do
today. We’re going to take an animal who’s scared, who does not want
to die, we’re going to take her to the vet. The industry wants to
claim that this is a crime and we know that is not true. I know many
of you know that’s not true, either.
AMY GOODMAN: Minutes later, Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere
entered the goat farm for the rescue operation.
WAYNE HSIUNG: There’s the baby right there, guys. Okay, so there’s a
baby right here. She looks like she’s pretty young. All these goats
are going to be sent to slaughter. There are one million goats
killed every year in the United States. It’s one of the
fastest-growing types of meat in the United States, unfortunately,
because people think it’s sustainable. But the reality is these poor
mothers have their babies taken away from them over and over again.
They are raised in these tiny pens. Look at this little pen for this
mom and her baby. It’s going to be heartbreaking to take this baby
away from her mama. We’re going to say “I’m sorry” to the mama and
tell her we’re going to give the baby a good life. But if we leave
the baby here, she’s going to be killed. And the way they kill these
poor goats is just heartless. They drag them by their hind legs.
They hit them on the head with a captive bolt on. Maybe of them are
not even unconscious when they are ultimately eviscerated in the
slaughter line. So this is the future for this baby. We can’t allow
that to happen so we’re going to take her out.
AMY GOODMAN: The group Direct Action Everywhere continued to
livestream after Wayne Hsiung had taken the goat from the farm.
WAYNE HSIUNG: We’ve got a little baby here. She is sad because her
mama, to take her from her, but we didn’t alarm, we didn’t trigger
any sort of attention, which is good. But this baby is scared. She
has never been outside of that little pen. Let me turn her around
the other way a little bit so you guys can all see her. But she’s
very young. Not just born, but her fur is still kind of just
developing. She’s only about, I’d say, seven pounds. At adult
weight, goats will be 35 pounds or so. The two breeds of goat they
most commonly use in goat meat are Kiko breeds and Boer goats. She
looks like probably a Kiko, which is from New Zealand, because she’s
got a black head. Boer goats tend to have brown heads. They will
usually raise them for about six months and they’ll send them off to
a processing plant for slaughter.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Wayne Hsiung, cofounder of the animal rights
group Direct Action Everywhere in 2018. He was convicted this week
for that action and given a suspended sentence of two years
probation. He’s a former faculty member at Northwestern Law School.
As a lawyer, he represented himself during the trial. He joins us
now from Asheville, North Carolina. Wayne Hsiung, last Monday you
began your opening statements by saying, “The question of this case
is really a simple one. The question is, is compassion a crime?”
Talk about why you did this, what you call a rescue, and respond to
your sentence. You were convicted but then given a suspended
sentence.
WAYNE HSIUNG: —to be out of jail right now. I very much expected to
be in a North Carolina jail facility. I think the reason I’m out of
jail is because of media attention from places like The Intercept
and Democracy Now! The reason we are doing this is because there is
an incredible amount of animal cruelty unfolding in states like
North Carolina, which has a very powerful agricultural industry.
When citizens have complained about this, including employees at
some of these farms, the government has consistently, instead of
trying to create some transparency or accountability in corporate
animal agriculture, passed laws to prevent undercover
investigations, passed laws preventing local citizens from suing pig
farms and other facilities for polluting the local air and water. So
activists have started resorting to direct action tactics to expose
what is happening and to try to give some direct care to the animals
who are suffering.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: During your trial, the judge repeatedly sustained
objections from the prosecution when you tried to explain your past
animal rescue efforts, including of a goat named Lenny?
WAYNE HSIUNG: That’s right. It was a strange trial. Because there
are so many folks on the right who are advocating for free speech,
which I think is a worthy cause to advocate for, but in this case,
even when I was trying to present a defense in my own criminal case,
we were prevented from talking about our reasons for being there.
The state filed a motion on the first day of trial saying, “You’re
not allowed to talk about the conditions the animals were facing,
the veterinary care you provided them.” So my opening statement was
cut off mid-sentence and I was not allowed to talk to the jury about
why we were there.
One of the strangest things about the state’s motion was the way
they phrased it was “witnesses at this testimony, at this trial are
not allowed to talk about efforts they made to protect the life of
the property at issue.” That is just such a strange non-sequitur,
the idea that we are talking about the life of property. I think it
goes to the central issue: Are the living creatures of this Earth
property or are they living creatures that deserve some form of
dignity and respect?
AMY GOODMAN: What has happened to the goat since then? If you could
talk about that. And then do you see your case as setting any kind
of precedent? And can you talk about animal farmers?
WAYNE HSIUNG: The goat was immediately rushed to a veterinarian when
we removed him and he had pneumonia. Unfortunately, we were not
allowed to talk about this at trial. The veterinarian we called was
stopped mid-sentence from describing the treatment the goat
received. But he’s happy and healthy. Unfortunately, because the
authorities attempted to return the goat to the farm, I don’t
actually know where he is. Activists had to abscond and take him
away, somewhere where I don’t know, but I’ve heard he’s in good
shape.
But I think this is going to set a precedent, because the
prosecution thought this was going to be a very easy and quick
trial. They thought it was going to be a one-day trial, would
convict and hopefully incarcerate me for a long time. But there were
dozens of local residents who came out and protested. My
understanding is thousands of people wrote to the local district
attorney and complained and said, “Why are you protecting property
more than protecting life?” Partly as a result, I think they
decided, “We don’t want to turn this guy into a martyr” so they
didn’t put me in prison. They said, “Let’s just let him go and tell
him to get out of North Carolina.” So that’s what I’m planning to
do.
AMY GOODMAN: And the animal farmers?
WAYNE HSIUNG: One of the things that came out in court is that a lot
of the animal farming industry has been describing us as terrorists.
You can see on the livestream what we did. All we did was take a
sick animal to the veterinarian. The fact that we live in a
political system where trying to help a suffering living creature is
terrorism while exploiting that same animal is just business as
usual is an indication of how the political parties of the system
and the industry of animal farming are just out of whack. It does
not make a lot of sense. I think that if we had gotten a chance to
talk in the trial openly about these issues and present the evidence
of what actually happens on animal farms, the jury might have been
swayed. But at the same time we got a wonderful chance, not in the
court of law but in the court of public opinion, to talk about these
issues openly. In that way, I think we are setting a very important
precedent.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: At the end of the trial, the prosecutor gave you a
hug? Do you think you changed some minds during the process of the
trial?
WAYNE HSIUNG: Yeah, it was a strange thing because the prosecution,
the judge were all very hardened and thought, “This guy is a
radical. He’s an extremist. Let’s throw him in jail and throw away
the key.” The jury did not get to hear most of the evidence of
animal cruelty. The judge and the prosecution did. My sense was both
the judge and the prosecution when we were arguing about what
evidence should be allowed, we had to talk about that evidence, and
even they, when they heard about how much a baby goat suffers when
they have pneumonia, when they heard about the fact that one of the
baby goats was covered with lice and unable to stand, they were
swayed. Because I think the reality is when any of us are confronted
with the reality of what happens in some of these industrial
slaughterhouses and farms or even small-scale facilities, even the
thought of cutting one animal’s throat, killing one animal, is
disturbing. And they were swayed. That’s a victory for us, I think.
AMY GOODMAN: Wayne Hsiung, thank you for being with us, animal
rights advocate and cofounder of Direct Action Everywhere. Just
convicted on felony charges of burglary and larceny for removing a
sick baby goat from a goat meat farm. Got a suspended sentence of
two years. Thanks to everyone who tuned in for our 25th anniversary
celebration Tuesday night. You can watch the full event at
Democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González. Thanks for
joining us.