US national arrested for walking ‘Dr Calf’ in Red Square — RT Russia and the former Soviet Union
Moscow police told media the woman paraded a calf while chanting ‘animals are not food’
A Moscow court sentenced a US citizen who walked a calf in Red Square on Tuesday to 13 days of administrative arrest and a fine. The woman is believed to be an animal rights activist and has appeared in the heart of the Russian capital, apparently with the aim of persuading people to go vegan.
Alicia Day, 34, was charged with staging an unauthorized protest that obstructed pedestrian traffic, as well as resisting police.
In addition to the administrative arrest, which involves a brief prison sentence, she was ordered to pay a fine of 20,000 rubles ($285).
“The US national, who is a vegetarian and animal rights activist, was strolling in Red Square…using a calf as visual propaganda and shouting the slogan ‘animals are not food’,“, said the judge on Wednesday, quoted by Russian media.
The perpetrator offered a different version of events. Day told reporters she bought the animal from the Avito ad website and named it “Doctor Calf.”
The woman, who speaks Russian and lives on a tourist visa in the town of Reutov in the Moscow region, explained that she “I just wanted to show Doctor Red Square,which she describes as a “beautiful place in our beautiful country.”
When asked if she had held similar performances outside the White House in Washington DC, Day replied in the negative, adding that she was originally from New York.
The activist said she held similar protests in her hometown, featuring pigs.
As for the calf, Russian authorities seized the animal and sent it to a shelter.
According to the British newspaper Daily Mail, the activist has clashed with British authorities on several occasions in recent years. She apparently rescued pigs from slaughterhouses and lived with them in a small London apartment.
RT
