Cockfighting in the spotlight

The Ministry of the Interior in Thailand has once again switched leaders, and as usual, palms have to be greased to keep the sport of cockfighting alive in its underground circuits. This time the animal rights organization that calls cockfighting barbaric and inciteful of violence, gambling and debauch, the Thai Animal Guardians Associations seeks to get to the Interior Minister before the cockfighters do.

Claims by the new interior minister that his aims are to clean up the streets and bring all activities under his eye within the scope of the law. This has given Thai AGA the impetus to call the minister out on allowing sport like cockfights to carry on.

Not only animal rights activists are speaking out against the sport, as the Ministry of Health have reminded the populous that avian flu can spread at events like cockfights, and in the last outbreak of avian flu, it was the fighting cock that carried the disease. Whether the long arm of the law or the briefcase under the table will prevail is anyone’s guess.