Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix has thrown his support behind a UC Berkeley student found guilty last month in a closely watched “chicken rescue” trial, calling the criminalization of people who save suffering animals a “moral failure.”
Through a statement released by animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, Phoenix urged Sonoma County prosecutors to redirect their attention from convicted activist Zoe Rosenberg to the poultry processing facility, a subsidiary of food giant Perdue Farms, from which she took four chickens.
“We have to decide who we are as a society: one that protects the vulnerable, or one that punishes those who try,” Phoenix said in the statement. “I urge the Sonoma County District Attorney to prosecute the years of documented animal cruelty at Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse; not the people trying to stop it.”…