The Public Defense of Río Negro, together with an animal protection organization, presented a habeas corpus for the cessation of the “unlawful deprivation of liberty” of a chimpanzee who is housed in a zoo from the city of General Roca and ordered his transfer to the Sorocaba Great Primate Sanctuary, in Brazil.
This is Toti, a 32-year-old chimpanzee who lived in the Córdoba zoobut in 2013 they transferred it to Río Negro.
Since then, a strong controversy has arisen, members of the Association of Officials and Lawyers for the Rights of Animals (Afada), assure that the property “is not adequate for their needs” and since 2014 they have been organizing campaigns for it to be transferred to the nature reserve.
In dialogue with Télam, the Afada’s lawyer, Julia Busquetaexplained that “toti is a chimpanzee that was born in captivity in 1990 in a zoo in Buenos Aires, then in 2008 it was taken to Córdoba and only in 2013 was it brought to the Bubalcó zoo in General Roca.”
“The truth is that all his life he was deprived of his liberty, always in captivity,” he said.
“Toti’s situation regarding his deprivation of liberty and his slavery was getting worse because his basic rights, which are freedom of movement and the right to a dignified life, were always being affected,” the lawyer remarked.
At the end of 2014, the Superior Court of Justice of Río Negro rejected a habeas corpus in favor of Toti presented by the Argentine branch of the Great Ape Project (GAP) whose purpose was his transfer.
“Although there were some previous actions, they did not reach a favorable resolution, so we as lawyers in November 2020 present ourselves again in conjunction with the Public Defender of the Poor and Absent of Río Negro,” said Busqueta.
“What we did is file a habeas corpus action that the intervening judge later transformed into amparo,” explained the lawyer.
“The goal of this action is to free Toti and relocate him to a great primate sanctuary.“, he added.
