- (AFP) -- Pop icon Paul McCartney today fired a salvo
for chicken rights, accusing fast food giant KFC of condoning cruelty to
the "remarkable" birds that end up as take-away meals.
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- The vegetarian former Beatle published an open letter
to the president of the company that the jovial Colonel Sanders made famous,
calling on KFC to heed animal rights activists' appeals for it to reduce
cruelty to the birds.
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- "If KFC paid for dogs or cats to be treated the
way these unfortunate chickens are treated, they could be charged with
cruelty to animals," he said in the letter to KFC chief executive
David Novak in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the local paper in KFC's
home town in the state of Kentucky.
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- "These remarkable animals are deserving of at least
a little kindness," he said in the letter written on behalf of People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which this month sued KFC for allegedly
disguising "grotesque abuses inflicted upon chickens by suppliers"
in its online advertising.
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- McCartney called on KFC and its parent company Yum! Brands
to implement an eight-point PETA plan aimed at improving the treatment
of the poultry that he said would "end the most egregious forms of
abuse" endured by the birds.
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- "For example, I would like to see KFC stop allowing
chickens to be bred and drugged so that they become so heavy that they
cripple under their own weight," the singer wrote.
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- In addition, he asked Novak to see that suppliers improve
their methods of slaughter to eradicate process of scalding birds to death
in feather removal tanks and to phase out electric stunning and burning
the beaks of birds.
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- McCartney's public appeal comes after PETA sued KFC and
Yum! Brands in Los Angeles over their allegedly deceptive advertising claims
over the way their suppliers treat chickens.
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- "KFC has said from the outset that they will not
allow the animals to feel any pain, (but) in fact every moment of these
animals' lives is characterised by unmitigated misery," PETA's Bruce
Friedrich said earlier.
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- The animal rights group has also claimed victory in its
campaigns against other US fast food outlets aimed at stopping cruelty
to animals, including McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendys.
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