NEW YORK – Animal welfare activists picketing Liam Neeson’s home on Saturday said they don’t agree with the actor that the city’s carriage horses should keep working.
Neeson didn’t appear as about 50 demonstrators filled the sidewalk in front of his apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Police watched, and doormen photographed protesters hoisting signs with such slogans as “Liam Neeson: Stop Supporting Cruelty!” and “Worked to Death!” with an image of a dead horse in a park.
READ MORE: Liam Neeson fights to keep horse-drawn carriages in NYC
Holding the second sign was Peter Wood, an animal protection investigator for various organizations that say it’s cruel for the horses to be subjected to traffic, pollution and possible accidents.
“It’s 2014, not 1914. It’s time for a change,” said Wood, who lives in Manhattan.
“Horses don’t belong in traffic, surrounded by buses. They don’t belong in the city; it’s outdated, it’s cruel,” he said, adding, “Life attached to a carriage with a poop bag attached to your rear end – that’s no life.”
Neeson, whose movies include Schindler’s List, Taken and Non-Stop, is a vocal supporter of the city’s carriage horses, which are kept in stables he toured recently with lawmakers. He says the horses are not being mistreated.
His publicist declined to comment on Saturday’s protest.
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