ECC NEWS

Help Make Our Communities Safer - For Everyone
Saturday, December 13, 2008


The Empty Cages Collective aims to help cultivate a culture where animals are recognized as fellow sentient beings worthy of respectful and compassionate treatment. We at ECC know all too well how the lack of ethical consideration and compassion for animals translates into cruelty, injustice and unnecessary killing. Animals possess many of the same feelings and abilities that humans do -- not the least of which is the capacity to experience pain and pleasure, as well as a desire to have their lives left intact without suffering. Nevertheless, we at ECC are confronted daily with the fact that animals remain the ultimate "other". This perception of "otherness" allows humans to demean and devalue the inherent worth and intrinsic value of our fellow animals. We justify their wholesale exploitation and abuse in the name of religious ideas, tradition, and cultural bigotry.

We say our "fellow animals" because it is a biological fact that human beings are indeed animals, though it may offend some of us or make us uncomfortable to consider ourselves as such. A culture that allows the marginalization, oppression, and exploitation of certain groups of human beings is one that will inevitably be violent and unsafe for many other animals. A culture that cannot protect the safety and dignity of its most vulnerable human members will not be able to protect its wild and companion animals. If our society cannot value the inherent worth of our fellow human beings, what hope do cats, dogs, pigeons, chickens, cows, chimpanzees, dolphins and other animals have of being treated respectfully and compassionately?
This is why the Empty Cages Collective encourages you to join our friends at the New York City Anti-Violence Project for a march, vigil and press conference for Jose Osvaldo Sucuzhanay. Mr. Sucuzhanay, a resident of the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, was brutally beaten while walking with his brother, Romel Sucuzhanay. The attack against Mr. Sucuzhanay occurred at 3:30 am on Sunday, November 30th at the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in Bushwick. The two brothers were headed home after an evening spent at a church party at St. Brigid's Roman Catholic Church and later La Vega, a local bar. The brothers were walking home with their arms linked, leaning close together. Just steps from their home, Jose and RomelSucuzhanay with a bottle and a baseball bat. Mr. Sucuzhanay, who is on life support at Elmhurst Avenue and Kossuth Place in were attacked. Their attackers, described as four black men driving a maroon or orange-red Honda SUV, jumped out of their car yelling anti-gay and anti-Hispanic epithets and proceeded to beat Jose Osvaldo hospital, is a well respected business owner and father of two.

Please show your support for Mr. Sucuzhanay, his family, and safer and just communities.

When: Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 2 PM
Where: Make The Road New York Children's Grove Park, corner of Myrtle Avenue and Grove Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn

For More Information, Contact: Anti-Violence Project: 212-714-1141