Around 50 animal rights supporters hold a protest near the 'Taken' actor's apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side after he showed his support to horse-drawn carriage industry.
- Apr 21, 2014
AceShowbiz - Some people who support animal rights held a protest in front of Liam Neeson's apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side on Saturday, April 19. As reported by The Associated Press, around 50 animal welfare supporters gathered on the sidewalk in front of the actor's home to voice their opinion after Neeson showed his support to the city's horse-drawn carriage industry.
The activists brought some signs which read, "Liam Neeson: Stop Supporting Cruelty!" and "Worked to Death!" with a photo of a dead horse. One of the activists, Peter Wood, explained his view to the news outlet, "It's 2014, not 1914. It's time for a change."
"Horses don't belong in traffic, surrounded by buses," Wood, who lives in Manhattan, continued. "They don't belong in the city; it's outdated, it's cruel. Life attached to a carriage with a poop bag attached to your rear end - that's no life."
Mayor Bill de Blasio has revealed plans to ban horse-drawn carriage industry, claiming that the horses are treated inhumanly. The horse-drawn carriage ban is supported by some celebrities such as Lea Michele, Pink and Peter Dinklage.
In a statement to GossipCop, PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews said, "Neeson and his carriage cronies - who are working with horse-slaughter proponents - are willfully misleading the public about the routine cruelty that horses in New York's carriage industry endure."
Neeson, however, argued that the horse were not mistreated. "It has been my experience, always, that horses, much like humans, are at their happiest and healthiest when working," he wrote in an editorial on The New York Times published earlier this month, calling the horse-drawn carriage "humane industry that is well regulated by New York City's Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene and Consumer Affairs." A representative for the "Taken" star has not commented on the Saturday protest.
