1st January 2024
Go Vegan World Launches 100 Bus Ads in Northern Ireland for January 2024
Go Vegan World ads will appear on 100 buses in Northern Ireland over the New Year period.
The ads are designed to remind the public that when they make non-vegan choices, other animals suffer and die.
Past Controversy
These ads caused controversy among Northern Ireland farmers in the past. In January 2020, the public body responsible for bus transport in Northern Ireland (“NI”), Translink, removed Go Vegan World’s ads from its buses, under pressure from farmers. Translink’s explanation for refusing to continue running Go Vegan World’s ads, was the claim that they would lead to complaints. We successfully challenged that refusal as an unlawful interference with our legal right to freedom of expression. Translink reversed its decision and has run our ads on several occasions since.
In 2023 the campaign faced further criticism as DUP MLA, Jonathan Buckley, described the advertisement as “anti agriculture” and said he has been in touch with Translink management in relation to it.
Given the link between the production and consumption of animal products on the one hand, and the resulting consequences in terms of environmental destruction, loss of biodiversity, climate chaos, and antibiotic resistance and zoonotic diseases, surely it is not anti-agriculture to promote a vegan diet that depends heavily on sustainable agriculture. Indeed, if politicians and farming bodies truly had farmers’ interests at heart, they would promote sustainable agriculture and encourage farmers to stop farming animals.
Personal Choice
How often have you heard the retort that veganism infringes on peoples’ personal choice? Let’s examine how much choice we truly have. Most of us were given no choice in being born into a speciesist culture that normalised the concept of other animals as inferior to humans; that taught us to accept animal products as normal, natural, necessary, and nice. Using other animals in our everyday lives was habitual long before we developed critical thinking skills or a sense of justice. If we had been taught accurately about what is entailed in the production of milk, eggs, fish, flesh, wool, and leather, entertainment and research, most of us would have been vegan from our youngest days.
Dairy Takes Babies from their Mothers
One of the most poignant facts that is hidden from us by the industry that profits from our ignorance, is the separation of mothers from their calves in the dairy industry.
These are the two simple facts that our current campaign in Northern Ireland focuses on. The ads are at the following locations:
Newtownabbey/Carrick, Omagh, Dungannon, Larne, Downpatrick Belfast Newtownabbey , Newcastle, Milewater Service centre, Enniskillen, Newry, Lisburn, Belfast Short Strand, Antrim, Magherafelt, Derry, Ballymena, Newtownards, Coleraine, Belfast Gt Victoria St, Craigavon, Bangor, Armagh
For more information on the injustice of using other animals and the moral imperative to be vegan, please see the section on The Animals We Use on our website and download our free Vegan Guide.
References
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/translink-removes-vegan-adverts-after-northern-ireland-farmers-outrage/38872994.html
