The Australian vegan activist Tash Peterson has been fined $3,500 on 8th April 2022 over two shirtless protests, one outside the Boatshed Markets in Cottesloe in December 2020 and another at the Louis Vuitton store in Perth city in August 2021.
Carrying a sign saying “I rather be naked than wear someone else’s skin”, Peterson stormed Louis Vuitton wearing only a flesh-coloured G-string with her torso covered in a red substance imitating animals’ blood, and shouted, “There is blood on your hands if you’re not a vegan.” She was accompanied by her boyfriend Jack Higgs and fellow animal advocate Arkadiusz Robert Swiebodzinski. Magistrate Michelle Harries found Patterson’s conduct disturbed the good order of the Louis Vuitton store, but found Mr Higgs and Mr Swiebodzinski not guilty of the charges against them. The Cottesloe protest involved dressing as a cow, with her top half naked but painted with a black and white cowhide pattern.
After the sentencing, Paterson said, “I actually find it very ironic that people would find my conduct to be that way when they are the ones who are paying people to stab animals in the throats.” Two days later Paterson staged another topless protest at the fitness apparel section of the Nike store in Perth, denouncing the company for using kangaroo skin in its shoes and calling on shoppers to boycott the products. She said “Nike are murdering kangaroos and turning them into shoes…The largest land-based murder of wildlife is happening in our own country. Every night thousands of kangaroos graze peacefully when humans invade their homes and shoot them in the head for their flesh and skin. It is standard legal industry practice to shoot mothers in the head, rip joeys from their pouch, and crush their skull or thrash them against a bull bar.”
