The Support to Animal Rights Activists Being Held in Custody

With the support of Amnesty International and countless animal rights associations, activists that are being imprisoned by paragraph 278a of Austrian Criminal law are getting letters of support from people all over the world since the start of repression over them on May 21, 2008.

You can also show them your support. Beside the letters and petition for their release from custody you can send them a few words of support which would meal a lot to them.

The vegan association of Austria has offered her services of delivering the letters to the prisoners – simply send your e-mails with the name of the person you want to write to in Subject at info@vegan.at.

Members of the association will write your e-mails by hand and send them by e-mail (All correspondence with the prisoners is read by the government so it can take 10 days for the letter to reach the person it was intended to).

Imprisoned activists are Christian, Christof, Elmar, Felix, Jan, Jürgen, Kevin, Leo, Martin and Sabine. Short descriptions of some of the activists:

Christian Moser

Christian was born on October 3, 1976, lives in Tirol and is a father to three children with who he is very close with and it's hard for him to be separated from his family. Christian is an innkeeper, a sculptor and an artist. He is truly concerned for human and animal rights. It is reflected in his creative work in which he isn't afraid to use artistic provocations to make people think.
Christian is organizing weekly info stalls against fur in Innsbruck in front of Kleider Bauer. On those events he brings his creativity in the form of theatre and drum performances.

Dipl. ing. Elmar Völkl

Elmar was born on February 11, 1977, lives in Vienna and had been working on his doctor thesis on technical physics. He spent most of his free time on computer and cars. But, he is also very interested in philosophy and sport. He takes part in animal rights activities, goes to protests and always here to help.

Mag. Felix Hnat

Felix was born on June 15, 1982, lives in Lower Austria, studied economics and has been involved for many years in animal rights campaigns, sustainable development, veganism and environment protection. As a president of the Austrian Vegan Society, he talks a lot for advantages of the vegan life style in public and by the media. Felix is also the head director of the bi-annual magazine Vegan in which his responsibility is to gather well researched facts about health, politics and economics and their relationship with veganism. He is working on his doctor thesis and is a fan of fitness.

Jürgen Faulmann

Jürgen was born on July 19, 1969, lives in Lower Austria, is a father of two kids and is involved in animal rights activism for many years. A few years ago he moved to Germany so he could work for PETA, but he returned to Austria and now has an important role as the director of organization Four Paws International. For Jürgen, the best way of getting the idea of animal rights across besides informing the public of the suffering of animals are colorful and creative actions and fantastic tastings of vegan food. Last Project of this trained chef was a specially prepared van that sells only vegan kebabs and burgers!

Dr. Martin Balluch (in hunger strike)

Martin was born on October 12, 1964, lives in Vienna, is a president of a respectable association Verein gegen Tierfabriken, has a doctorate in natural science and philosophy. After finishing his studies he worked as an assistant in universities in Vienna, Heidelbergu in Germany and Cambridge in the UK. When he returned to Austria, he made animal rights his biggest occupation. Martin was invited to schools as a teacher on animal rights and his doctorate in philosophy has been published as a book The Continuity of Consciousness: The Scientific Argument for Animal Rights. Martin loves nature and uses every opportunity for hiking, climbing and skiing. Immediately before his arrest Martin has spent most of his time solving the problem of transporting live animals and getting ready a campaign called "Animal Protection in the Constitution," which was meant to start on the day of his arrest. Martin has been on hunger strike over a month, lost over 20 kg, getting infusion and medication for pain.

You can write them at mail info@vegan.at (under Subject should be the name of the person you want to write to).