Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic depictions of animal torture.
After a Pennsylvania woman was charged with torturing animals on social media for attention, PETA told Fox News Digital that it is recommending pushing for federal charges as well.
Twenty-eight-year-old Anigar Monsee, who lives in the township of Upper Darby, ran a YouTube account called “Motheranddaughter” which reportedly showed a “scantily-clad woman torturing rabbits, chickens, frogs and pigeons by slowly disemboweling and otherwise mutilating the animals while still alive, and/or by severing the struggling and screaming animals’ necks with a dull knife over the course of several minutes,” The Delaware County Daily Times reported Monday.
“The channel has over 20,000 subscribers and had been viewed over 1,800 times as of Monday,” the outlet reported.
A spokesperson for the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) told Fox News Digital that the news of Monsee’s charges was a great relief.
“We’re relieved that local authorities jumped right on this and have filed state charges,” PETA spokesperson Kristin Rickman said. “We also included the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in our memo, so we’re hopeful that federal charges can be filed under the PACT Act as well.”
The PACT Act, or the “Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act,” empowers the federal government to stop the creation and distribution of “animal crush” videos across state lines.
“It retains existing criminal offenses that prohibit knowingly creating or distributing an animal crush video using interstate commerce,” according to the act’s description. “The bill also adds a new provision to criminalize an intentional act of animal crushing. A violator is subject to criminal penalties—a fine, a prison term of up to seven years, or both.”
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The act also “provides additional exceptions for conduct, or a video of conduct, including conduct that is (1) medical or scientific research, (2) necessary to protect the life or property of a person, (3) performed as part of euthanizing an animal, or (4) unintentional.”
Rickman explained that “animal crush” is a type of “sexual fetish” online that is short for “animal crushing.”
“Often,” she said, “we see instances where the individuals creating the videos are receiving a financial benefit” from the abuse content.
Rickman said that PETA was “very hopeful” that federal officials will file charges under the PACT Act against Monsee.
The spokesperson said Monsee’s charges for animal abuse show how “extensive” a following that animal crush videos have online.
“Aside from the horrific torture imposed on each of these animals who are individuals just like us, feeling pain, feeling terror, not understanding why someone is inflicting that on them,” Rickman said.
Some of the videos showed animals surviving for “30 minutes or more” before they “finally succumbed to their injuries,” she continued. “If you imagine something like that happening to yourself, you can easily see how disturbed the brain of a person must be to engage in this activity and to solicit input and likes and views from other people for it.”
