President receives memo on animal rights issues

President Nikos Christodoulides on Monday received a memo with nine animal rights issues that need to be addressed, the animal party said.

According to the animal party, the head of the party Kyriacos Kyriacou handed the president the memo, which included various animal welfare issues, including zoos, livestock units, where there are several violations.

Kyriacou said that he also spoke with the president about the issue of removing VAT from veterinary care, which is a cost that rescuers and volunteers all need to pay as well.

“We hope that the president in his wisdom will think, decide, and answer us. The president told us that he is optimistic, and we hope for a collaboration, and we expect that he will advance this process,” he said.

Asked if there is any proposal that the government prioritises as an immediate priority, Kyriacou said: “For us, it’s really not just these nine points and for us they all have their seriousness and importance.”

He pointed out that in 2023 in a European country, it does not honour anyone to have zoological diseases kill animals, to cage animals, and to shoot with arrows or behead animals.

He added that Gandhi said that you judge the culture and moral progress of a people by the way they treat animals.

Kyriacou said that they also talked for a while about the political issue of the reunification of our country.

“Don’t ask us to choose which of the two pieces is the best. For us it is Cyprus,” he added.

Asked if they are satisfied with today’s meeting, Kyriacou said that “of course we are satisfied.”

“We have the youth with us today. They are our young activists, they are our hope. And symbolically today we offered the president two pots with the ‘patience’ plant, and he accepted it with a lot of love,” he concluded.