Animals have always been my friends and an important part of my life. As a vegetarian for almost twenty years and a lawyer focusing on animal welfare law, I’m honored and very pleased to support Liz Marshall’s project THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE. This movie does an extremely important job improving our sensibility towards the millions of animals who suffer and die each day all over the world for human interests. Over the last twenty years, I have seen with my own eyes many dark sides of human-animal-relationships in my own animal welfare work; all the hidden and supplanted forms of animal abuse such as animal experimentation, slaughter and other forms of cruelty to animals. These strong impressions reinforced my firm conviction that many things, in general, must change. Animals are not soulless objects for consumption – they are not ghosts – but sentient beings with a capacity for suffering. They deserve our respect and they consequently need our protection due to their own helplessness. We must not close our eyes to reality, hard as it may be to bear. We are responsible for the animals on this planet – and most importantly we have to fight ignorance and indifference. Fundamentally forming and changing human opinion takes information and presentation of hard facts. I thank Liz Marshall and her wonderful team for their fantastic work and I am convinced that the documentary will help worldwide to inspire people to reconsider their attitude towards animals. It is my deep hope that THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE will be seen far and wide.
All the best,
Dr. Gieri Bolliger, Attorney at law
Director of the Foundation for the Animal in the Law (TIR, Switzerland)
Photo credit: © TIR
Born 1968 in Chur, Switzerland, Dr. Gieri Bolliger’s focus since his MLaw at the University of Zurich (1994) has been on animal welfare law issues. In 2000, he finished his thesis on European Animal Welfare Law and since then has published numerous books as editor, and author and co-author, several studies and more than 80 articles on Swiss and international animal welfare law. He holds a teaching assignment on animal welfare law at the University of Zurich and has been working since 2000 as an attorney at law and research associate for the Foundation for the Animal in the Law (Stiftung für das Tier im Recht, TIR), a Swiss animal welfare organization which focuses on legal and ethical aspects in Zurich, and since 2007 as the executive director. Gieri Bolliger is a frequent speaker at national and international congresses on issues of animal welfare law. From 1999 to 2009, he was a member and animal welfare deputy of the animal experiment committee of the canton of Zurich. Furthermore he has been a member of the committee of animal welfare of the canton of Zurich since 2011.
Read an interview between TGIOM Director Liz Marshall and Dr. Gieri Bolliger.
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