Amazon.com Under Fire for Sticking with Animal Fighters |
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August 8, 2007
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| ©The HSUS |
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| Magazines sold by Amazon.com promote cockfighting. |
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In recent months, the nation awakened to a gruesome and pervasive practice—animal fighting. Members of Congress, corporate leaders and the public cried out against dogfighting. And Louisiana and New Mexico enacted laws this year to outlaw cockfighting—the last two states to join the fold.
Online retail giant Amazon.com is now beginning to face the same kind of scrutiny reserved for cockfighters and dogfighters. The company is the only online retailer of subscriptions to animal fighting magazines in the United States.
Do the Right Thing
In July 2005, The HSUS delivered a letter to Amazon.com CEO Jeffrey Bezos, informing him of the magazines on his company's website. After alerting Amazon.com to the advertisements for illegal items in the magazines, The HSUS requested their removal. The request was met with stony silence. (In contrast, a similar HSUS action alerting Korean Air Lines and Continental Airlines of the illegality of their shipments of "gamefowl" resulted in the end to bird shipments.)
After giving Amazon.com a year to mull over its complicity in this illegal animal cruelty, The HSUS again contacted the company, this time informing its corporate general counsel of The HSUS's intent to file a civil action against the company for its illegal sales of The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock.
To the Courts
When Amazon.com again refused to budge, The HSUS filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com, as well as the publishers of The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock, in District of Columbia Superior Court on February 8, 2007. The lawsuit said this: the federal Animal Welfare Act expressly and specifically prohibits use of the U.S. mail service for "promoting" or "in any other manner furthering" animal fighting.
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| In a typical cockfight, sharp blades are fastened to the chickens' legs to make injuries worse. |
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Under fire from a media and public intolerant of animal cruelty, Amazon.com defended its inaction, citing freedom of speech issues. But the defense is meritless.
The First Amendment does
not protect criminal solicitations for the illegal purchase and sale of fighting animals and weapons, which is the driving purpose of these animal fighting materials.
Magazines Promote Illegal Activities
If there is any doubt that The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock exist to promote and further illegal animal fighting, one need only glance through their pages to find hundreds of advertisements for cockfighting knives, cockfighting pits and the so-called "gamest cocks alive."
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Gamecock magazine for sale on Amazon.com March 30, 2007. The screen included a link to The Feathered Warrior. |
Illustrating this point further, the December 2006 issue of
The Gamecock featured a full-page advertisement for the sale of the "Sally Gap" cockfighting pit in Kentucky. When an HSUS investigator responded to the ad by phone, he was told that this was one of the largest cockfighting pits in the region. The seller also gave exact directions to the pit and assured the investigator that anyone who bought the pit would have nothing to worry about from the local sheriff.
The words of the Sally Gap's owner proved true. In February 2007, just before filing the lawsuit against Amazon.com, an HSUS investigator visited the Sally Gap pit while a cockfighting derby was in full force. Amid dead and dying birds was a crowd of 500 people, including children, calling out bets on which birds would live or die. The roosters had metal weapons attached to their legs for maximum bloody effect.
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From the video "Unleashed." |
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Amazon.com thinks people have a right to profit from videos of dog fights staged solely for the purpose of selling the videos. |
Solicitations for Cruelty
The Sally Gap investigation provides unmistakable proof that Amazon's animal fighting materials are far more than an exchange of ideas; they are active solicitations for violent criminal activity. Their express purpose is to promote and further illegal animal fighting. Every time Amazon.com sells a subscription to The Feathered Warrior or The Gamecock, it violates federal law.
Amazon's inaction has been puzzling. In 2007, Amazon.com removed a dogfighting video from its website, in recognition of a federal law that prohibits profiting from depictions of animal cruelty. Amazon.com has pulled several titles from its website based solely on their offensiveness.
With public pressure mounting on animal fighting, Amazon can't afford not to act on the magazines. The alternative is placing themselves in the corner with animal fighting cruelty.
Related Links
Cockfighting Fact Sheet
HSUS Sues Amazon.com over Animal Fighting Videos and Magazines
Amazon.com Faces Lawsuit for Illegal Cockfighting Magazines
The HSUS v. United States Postal Service (Cockfighting magazines)
The HSUS v. Amazon.com, Inc., et al. (Animal fighting materials)
