Especially sadistic images. A BBC investigation published on Tuesday reveals the existence of a large international monkey torture ring. The concept: Clients, especially in the US and UK, pay people in Indonesia to torture primates on video.
So journalists have infiltrated these channels via social media, uncovering hundreds of people coming together to come up with new and increasingly egregious ideas to go after monkeys, and then calling on others in Asia to come up with them. implement.
“Hands Covered in Blood”
The torture ring started on YouTube, before moving to private groups on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. The BBC managed to exchange with the so-called “The King of Torture”, one of the main distributors of this type of video.
“They had set up a survey,” he said, recounting his first experience in a Telegram torture group. “Do you want a hammer? Do you want pliers? Do you want a screwdriver? The resulting video was the most grotesque thing I’ve ever seen,” she detailed.
“It’s not unlike drug money,” he argues. “Drug money comes from dirty hands, this money comes from bloody hands.”
The posted content includes hundreds of videos showing little monkeys being slapped, slammed against walls, or subjected to other violent experiences.
open investigations
According to the BBC, the police are currently pursuing the buyers and several arrests have already been made. Currently, at least 20 people are under investigation around the world, including The Torture King. The masterminds of the videos risk up to seven years in prison.
For its part, the Indonesian justice system announced that it had arrested two people accused of committing acts of torture. They were sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
“Anyone involved in the purchase or distribution of the monkey torture videos should expect someone to knock on their door at some point,” the investigating officer said.
“You won’t get away with it.”
In fact, animal protection organizations ask that, in addition to video producers and sellers, people who pay for this type of content, especially if they provide a list of acts that must be done to the animal, are also susceptible to prosecution.
Telegram wants to protect “freedom of expression”
“We have seen an escalation of this extreme content, which was previously hidden but is now circulating openly on platforms like Facebook,” Sarah Kite, co-founder of the charity Action for Primates, told the BBC.
According to the British newspaper, videos of monkey torture are still easily accessible on Telegram and Facebook, where dozens of groups, some with more than a thousand members, share the violent content.
Facebook said it had removed groups that had caught its eye. “We do not allow the promotion of animal abuse on our platforms and remove such content when we become aware of it, as we did in this case,” a spokesperson said.
YouTube also says it’s working “hard to quickly remove violent content.”
Meanwhile, Telegram’s management said it was committed to protecting users’ privacy and human rights, such as free speech, adding that its moderators were not allowed to proactively patrol private discussion groups.
Source: BFM TV
