An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary1 after a court recognized the ape as a "non-human person" unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported on Sunday.
阿根廷当地媒体周日报道,阿根廷一家法院认为当地动物园内的一只猩猩被非法剥夺了自由权,并判定这只猩猩为“非人类人”,它可获得自由并转移至避难所。
Animal rights campaigners filed a habeas corpus petition - a document more typically used to challenge the legality of a person's
detention2 or
imprisonment3 - in November on behalf of Sandra, a 29-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Buenos Aires zoo.
In a
landmark4 ruling that could pave the way for more
lawsuits5, the Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) argued the ape had sufficient
cognitive6 functions and should not be treated as an object.
The court agreed Sandra, born into
captivity7 in Germany before being transferred to Argentina two decades ago, deserved the basic rights of a "non-human person."
"This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also for other
sentient8 beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and scientific laboratories," the daily La Nacion newspaper quoted AFADA lawyer Paul Buompadre as saying.
Orangutan is a word from the Malay and Indonesian languages that means "forest man."
Sandra's case is not the first time
activists9 have sought to use the habeas corpus
writ10 to secure the release of wild animals from captivity.
A U.S. court this month tossed out a similar bid for the freedom of 'Tommy' the chimpanzee,
privately12 owned in New York state, ruling the
chimp11 was not a "person" entitled to the rights and protections afforded by habeas corpus.