This powerful advertisement by campaign group
Avaaz has become a bone of legal contention. It was placed in the main airport in Johannesburg last year, its aim to put pressure on South Africa's
President Jacob Zuma to ban the trade in lion bones to Asian countries, where they are idiotically used in traditional "medicines" and as bogus sex potions. According to Avaaz, official statistics show that South Africa increased its export of lion bones by 250% between 2008 and 2010. Nine days after the ad. was posted, airport authorities ordered its removal as a potential "public relations disaster" for South Africa's tourist trade. Avaaz has taken the Airports Company SA (Acsa) to Johannesburg High Court, claiming the removal of the ad. breached Avaaz's constitutional right to freedom of expression (
CLICK).
4 Comments:
Let's hope they win. What happens when the lions run out? Tigers?
The Chinese already use tigers. And rhino horns. And bears' glands. It's all a placebo effect; so any old bones would do.
Looks suspiciously similar to an old National Lampoon cover - "Buy this magazine or we'll shoot this dog". However, as always the moral guardians seize on the mesage as being offensive and not the thing it's complaining about. Was it not ever so?
Hi, Lee
You're right: PR beats truth more often than not. The ad. reminded me of the 2007 Greenpeace poster: "Tell The Government To Choose The Right Biofuel Or The Orang-Utan Gets It".
http://coxsoft.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/orang-utan-advert.html
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