Here's the ad:

Dubai – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia had hoped to place a full-page ad highlighting the animal suffering associated with live-sheep imports in Open Skies, the in-flight magazine of the airline Emirates, but the airline has grounded the idea. The ad shows sheep crammed together aboard a ship and reads, "And You Thought Economy Class Was Cramped!", in both English and Arabic. The ad goes on to describe the abusive conditions under which sheep are exported from Australia to the Middle East and how thousands of animals suffer and die en route. PETA is asking Gulf states to refuse to purchase live imported animals. Unfortunately, the publishing team for Open Skies told PETA, "Emirates does not allow us to carry these type of artworks".

"There is no humane way to ship tens of thousands of sheep who are jam-packed into stalls and mired in their own waste", says PETA spokesperson Nadia Montasser. "Emirates has a highly esteemed economy class, but even flying in the cargo hold would be luxurious compared to what these sheep have to endure. Anyone who purchases these hideously abused animals is fuelling the notoriously cruel live-transport industry."

Sheep transported to the Middle East from Australia are packed tightly together on enormous, multi-tiered ships, where crowded conditions cause many of the animals to be trampled to death or to starve when they cannot reach food and water troughs. Sheep are confined amid their own waste in extreme heat on ships that hold up to 125,000 animals. PETA is calling for an immediate end to the export of live animals from Australia.

According to Islamic law, animals slaughtered for food should not be cruelly handled or transported and should receive adequate food and water. "If animals have been subjected to cruelties in their breeding, transport, slaughter, or in their general welfare, meat from them is considered impure and unlawful to eat (haram)", said the late Imam BA Hafiz al-Masri. "The flesh of animals killed by cruel methods (Al-Muthiah) is carrion (Al-Mujathamadh). Even if these animals have been slaughtered in the strictest manner, if cruelties were inflicted on them otherwise, their flesh is still forbidden food (haram)".

The Quran and the Prophet Muhammad taught that "an act of cruelty to a beast is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being".