received over email (on a personal note, fuck anti-deustch they are fash cosplaying antifascism)
Reasons why we’re not attending IARC and neither should you!
We are a group of activists who want to share our serious concerns about the current animal rights movement by examining an incident at the 2024 International Animal Rights Conference (IARC) in Luxembourg.
We all met at 2024 IARC, and some of us have been attending for many years because we saw ourselves reflected in the grassroots concept and inclusive values that IARC claims to have. Yet they proved to be performative at the 2024 IARC, due to an incident meant to silence Palestinian representation and its refusal to take a stance against the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
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What happened?
During the 2024 International Animal Rights Conference (IARC), an organiser asked if they could take a picture of us to post on social media. While posing for the photo, some of us put on keffiyehs to represent Palestinian liberation. The organiser then said they were not sure if they could post it and needed to discuss it with other organisers.
Since we hadn’t heard from them all day, some of us spoke out about it on the open mic in the evening. Some organisers then went on stage to confirm that, as Germans, they didn’t want to take any political stance on the issue because it’s complicated in Germany. They even asked, “What is Palestine? Is Hamas Palestine?” and condemned Hamas, the government of Gaza, which, like most regions across the world, operates with a military. Meanwhile, they invited a speaker who talked about providing vegan food to the Ukrainian army, which shows, in their view, that Ukrainian/white resistance—as long as they eat vegan—is acceptable, but brown resistance is terrorism or complicated.
It was quite clear to us that their “apolitical” policy doesn’t apply to other widely accepted social justice issues, such as feminism or queer rights—which they openly support, for example, by using rainbow-pride coloured name tags as labels for their “awareness team.”
After this incident, attendees attempted to engage in a dialogue with IARC organisers on a larger scale. However, the organisers wanted to limit the conversation to as small a group as possible to keep it private, turning it more into a conflict resolution session than an open discussion. Many people who care about Palestine didn’t even know this conversation was happening.
For three hours, we and others who joined the conversation tried to explain the significance of the incident—the racism and hypocrisy that it represents—and informed IARC organisers that we wouldn’t return unless they made a clear stance on Palestine in an effort toward total liberation. Instead of taking our needs seriously, IARC organisers fixated on the risk of being perceived as antisemitic by German “left-wing” groups and people.
Despite repeated attempts to engage with the organisers since the conference in September 2024—including direct messages, emails, feedback forms, and social media callouts—they have only made their stance clearer. In January 2025, IARC updated its website with statements such as, the “IARC organisation team condemns attacks on the rights, safety, and freedoms of all humans and non-human animals, whether by state or non-state organisations,” and, “While taking intersectionality seriously, the conference will not position itself to concrete political conflicts.”
Additionally, when someone emailed them to ask about the incident, they replied, “A small group of people raised specific demands and disruptions that could also be interpreted as anti-Semitism and we definitely did not want to support this,” instead of admitting their censorship. At this point, we realised all our efforts in good faith to reform the conference had been totally ignored, and we were ostracised as “minorities”—in their view— from mainstream spaces.
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Why does this matter?
The genocide and occupation of Palestine are neither “complicated” nor a “conflict.” The use of such language by an international conference is already tacitly complicit in the oppression as a whole. This is particularly troubling in the context of an animal rights conference which declares to fight for “human rights as well,”—as its logo represents— because it contributes to the dehumanisation of a specific group of people by actively excluding them from its scope.
IARC claims to provide a platform for diverse representatives in an inclusive and discrimination-free environment for all participants. However, when we raised genuine concerns about discriminatory censorship of representation of brown bodies and liberation, they refused to foster such an environment. The “awareness team,” which is supposed to address such situations with fairness, appeared to consist solely of organisers operating by their own standards of racism, which exclude acknowledgment of the genocide in Palestine.
IARC also states on its website, “We try to keep the topics and the people presenting them as diverse as possible. Especially, we welcome applications by BIPOC, queer people, women, people with disabilities, and all other people who are underrepresented in our community,” while dismissing concerns raised by predominantly people of colour, queer people, and women in order to avoid controversial feedback from people in Germany.
Furthermore, in 2024, 8 out of 10 IARC organisers were German, despite purporting to be an international conference not even taking place in Germany. The weaponisation of antisemitism is particularly strong in Germany due to its own historical guilt, but the organisers used this as an excuse for not opposing the genocide in Palestine. This conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism is deeply disingenuous and in itself antisemitic, emboldening the far right.
Some may accuse us of causing “infighting” within the movement and creating division. We appreciate the amazing work IARC does and we truly value spaces where we can gather, learn from each other, grow together, and strengthen our movement. We wish we didn’t have to boycott any event like this. But, as animals ourselves and as animal rights activists, we cannot, in good conscience, support a conference that refuses to even call what’s happening in Palestine a genocide. IARC’S refusal also means they are ignoring all forms of life—animals, land, water, trees, etc.—being erased in the ongoing genocide against Palestinians.
The animal rights movement, which is rooted in challenging systemic exploitation and violence, cannot succeed without dismantling the mechanisms of oppression. It is essential to recognise that each struggle is an interconnected part of a wider effort to fight imperial oppression across the world. All oppression—and therefore all liberation—is connected. Without the liberation of Palestine, we will never get closer to animal liberation.
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CALL TO ACTION:
If you believe that IARC’s censorship and subsequent attitude/behaviours are problematic and do not align with the values of your activism, do not attend or support their conferences. Boycott IARC indefinitely.
- Comment on this post to amplify Palestinian resistance and liberation.
- Use your platform to share this boycott letter.
- If you are a sponsor, rescind your funding/sponsorship.
- If you were planning to apply as a speaker, please reconsider. Or, apply to speak about the genocide in Palestine, colonialism, and imperialist violence—and how it relates to animal rights. Let us know the result once you hear back from IARC.
- If you have registered or applied as a speaker or helper: withdraw your participation and clearly explain to the organisers why you are doing so.
- If you have been accepted as a speaker and have already announced it, share your decision to boycott the conference on social media.
- If you must attend IARC (due to grants, funding, or occupational reasons), we urge you to include the issue of Palestine in your presentation agenda.- Initiate discussions, ask questions, engage with the organisers to hold them accountable, and create space for meaningful dialogue about Palestine, colonialism, and its connection to veganism.
- Wear keffiyehs or any attire that represents Palestinian liberation. They can’t censor everyone!
We admit, the ability to boycott any space, including IARC, is in itself a privilege. It was not an easy decision at all, as we are very sad to take this step and also worried about leaving such spaces unchallenged by not being present. Together, we are using our privilege to boycott IARC and, instead, amplify spaces that embody total liberation.
In the meantime, we officially demand that IARC include at least 50% people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, rather than being predominantly German, in the organising team. If there had been more organisers from less Western-centric standpoints, its perspective may have been different. We are doing what we think is necessary, yet we believe we are still aligned with IARC in many ways, and this is, rather, a way of holding space for all of us to grow together.
