Animal rights activists and leading experts in several biological fields including primatology and anthropology are joining forces to uphold a case going before an Austrian court which seeks a declaration of “human status” for a 26-year-old chimpanzee.
According to media reports, the chimpanzee known as Hiasl was barely one year old in 1982 when he was illegally smuggled out of Sierra Leone and into Austria to be used, along with several other chimps, for AIDS and hepatitis research at a laboratory near Vienna. Customs officials discovered Hiasl and rerouted him to an animal sanctuary where he resided until this year.
The sanctuary now faces bankruptcy and Hiasl’s future is once again uncertain with the possibility that he may be shipped to the original lab that he was destined for.
Animal rights activists have been campaigning to protect Hiasl from possibly being sent back to the lab by working to have a legal guardian appointed over him. However, since only humans have the right to a legal guardian, they must first convince the court that the chimpanzee, is in fact, “human.”
Some of the arguments that they intend to use include the argument that a chimpanzee’s DNA is approximately 97% akin to human DNA.
The hearing has been stalled while the judge, Barbara Bartl, an animal rights supporter herself, determines if the claims of “asylum status” for the ape have been legitimately established.
LifeSiteNews.com