Sunday, March 9, 2008

Among the many reasons I will not visit Puerto Rico -- reports of dubious safety for tourists being among them -- is this story:

This much seems certain about the events of last October at three housing projects in this town near Puerto Rico’s northern coast: Men working for the municipality entered the projects, rounded up dozens of dogs and cats that they said violated the housing authority’s no-pets policy and took them away.

What happened next is less clear, but a lawsuit filed on behalf of 33 families claims that city employees and contractors drugged and brutalized dozens of animals and then flung them from a 50-foot-tall highway bridge into a weed-choked ravine and left them to die.

Witnesses say they found a pile of dog corpses and skeletons beneath the bridge, but the contractors have denied wrongdoing and city officials have denied responsibility.

I won't visit for the same reason I won't visit China: the flagrant disregard for the innate rights of living things, people and animals alike. I won't support these places with my tourist dollars. It's perhaps the most I can do, but at least it is something.

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