Caught at an Indonesian abattoir, this activist says he was beaten, burnt and smeared with blood

Warning: graphic content

Singapore/Jakarta: An animal rights activist, hidden camera tucked in his clothes, finagles his way into an Indonesian abattoir and films what he and others claim is inhumane treatment of Australian cattle.

His video captures an animal on its side, kicking as blood gushes from its open neck. One of its legs is hooked to a wire and the convulsing body is hauled across the floor. Another clip shows similar treatment of another animal.

The animal rights activist said he was caught by meat workers inside an Indonesian abattoir before he could escape.

Covert operations like this have exposed cruel treatment inside abattoirs in Indonesia and Australia. The latest footage, seen by this masthead, is confronting for a casual viewer.

Whether standards have been breached – namely, if the animals were still conscious – is another matter.

An expert says the footage is inconclusive. For its part, the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has written to the Indonesian government calling for an investigation and possible criminal sanctions.

Australia exports live cattle, seen here in a file picture, to Indonesia.Credit: Tatan Syuflana

But the allegations in this case are extraordinary regardless because, unlike in previous examples, the activist was caught while still on the premises. By the following morning, he was in hospital.

The young man, who asked to remain nameless for fear of further reprisals, obtained permission to be inside the slaughterhouse in October last year under false pretences. The facility, named by PETA as RPH Prigi Mas, is one of several near each other in Jakarta’s west, understood to be linked through ownership.

“Just before I left, one of the workers told me that the manager wanted to see me in his office,” the activist said.

“The [manager] wasn’t sure I was who I claimed I was. He said this particular [facility] had been infiltrated before and footage spread to the media, so they were being extra cautious.”

The manager asked to photocopy his identification card, which was outside in the car.

“I took out my ID card [at the car], but then I changed my mind,” he said. “I opened the window and I told them, ‘Actually, I didn’t bring my ID card, I’m just going to leave now.’

“But before long, my car was surrounded. I had a driver at the time, but because we were surrounded he didn’t dare move the car. And it happened so fast. They were shouting and demanding that I come out, and they opened the door and they pulled me out.”

More workers came from the neighbouring plants, he said, until it was “a mob with a mob mentality”.

They took his phone and also found his hidden camera, which did not record any of what allegedly happened next.

The activist claimed his hands and feet were tied to prevent his escape. He said he was punched and burnt with a cigarette. Blood was smeared across his face, and workers allegedly threatened to drown him in animal excrement. Hospital records showed he suffered a broken nose, but he has now recovered.

Before receiving treatment, he was taken to the police station, where officers noted his injuries and began their questioning. At some point, a family member turned up and helped broker a peace deal: the abattoir would not sue for trespass, and the activist would not sue for torture.

“Looking back, I think I [agreed] because I was still in a delirious state, and I just wanted to end it,” he said. “But now I think I had more of a case than them.”

Imron, a part-owner of one of the linked abattoirs, said staff became wary when their guest wandered into the slaughter area. Their suspicions were confirmed when he later tried to escape rather than provide his ID.

“He did not want to say where he came from and it made my staff unhappy,” said Imron, adding he was not there at the time.

Imron, who goes by one name, said the deal at the police station was made because “he admitted [wrongdoing] and we also felt guilty for taking the law into our own hands”.

But the matter was not strictly finished. According to the activist, police officers asked to temporarily keep the camera’s memory card to review the treatment of cattle. Some time later, he claimed, they asked if they could delete the contents.

“I said it was not their property and, second, it would be tampering with evidence and be unlawful,” he said. “Eventually, we got the memory card back with the help of a lawyer. But footage related to the slaughterhouse was missing. We still managed to retrieve some of it with software.”

A police spokesman strongly denied he or any of his officers did anything to the card.

As for the footage in hand, PETA wrote to the Indonesian government saying it contained evidence of cattle, alleged to be Australian, being inhumanely slaughtered in breach of regulations.

“A [PETA-employed] veterinarian who reviewed the footage concluded that ‘the cows show evidence of being conscious while slaughtered’ due to improper stunning and cutting of the animals’ arteries,” the submission read.

The PETA vet argued the animals’ movements were “not consistent” with post-mortem convulsions often witnessed in slaughtered cattle.

“Blood is also seen to be pulsing out of their necks during slaughter, indicating that they still had a heartbeat that could support the nervous system if they were not stunned properly,” the vet said.

This masthead asked Dr Bidda Jones, a former RSPCA chief scientist now working for the Australian Alliance for Animals, to review the footage.

“If those two animals were conscious, that would be really disturbing. I think on balance it’s probably unlikely. But without being there to check, you just don’t know,” she said.

“The easiest thing to do is for the [workers] to put a finger on the eyeball and see if there’s any reflex because that’s just one of the last things to go. They should be trained to do that. And they may have already done that – that’s the thing, you can’t see [in the footage] what happened before that.

“The big issue is that it’s really difficult to get that kind of footage these days from anywhere because ... certainly they’ve all been told to look for activists. It’s probably one of the things they’re quite good at training people to do.”

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