Animal Liberation Malta activists blocked the Mdina Bridge in a protest on Saturday aimed at raising awareness at the need to ban karozzini (horse-drawn carriages), the group said Monday.
During the protest activists chanting “Din Mohqrija – Mhux tradizzjoni” and “It’s not entertainment – it’s slavery” just metres away from the area allocated for karozzini outside the old capital city. As an animal rights group, Animal Liberation Malta said it is in principle against karozzini as it is a form of animal exploitation. Additionally given that we live in a fully motorised world there is no need or function for them.
Karozzini today only serve as a tourist attraction. Animal Liberation Malta stated that from a tourism standpoint there is a global move against horse drawn carriages with more and more cities around the world taking the step to banning this cruel practice. The list of cities (most of which are bigger than all of Malta) is growing like Montreal (Canada), Barcelona, Prague, Melbourne, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Palma de Mallorca. Mediterranean cities, also heavily dependent on tourism like Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca are taking bold steps on horse drawn carriages.
The Spanish city council of Palma de Mallorca has announced a ban on horse draw carriages as from 2024. Their intention is that all horse drawn carriages will be replaced with electric carriages. Animal Liberation Malta has been advocating this option now for quite some time. We believe that the transition to electric would be an ideal solution for Malta.
An activist from Animal Liberation Malta said during the event that “we are proposing solutions that are sustainable and at the same time animal friendly. We recommend that Transport Malta should issue a special grant for cabby drivers for them to go electric. Apart from the transition to electrification, we also propose that no new licences for cabby drivers should be issued. Furthermore, a grandfather clause should be triggered whereby existing horses will be allowed to continue working, yet upon retiring the cabby owner cannot replace the horse with a new horse but rather go to an electric option.”