Court grants rights to Ape

A court in Argentina has ruled that a shy orangutan who spent the last 20 years in a zoo

can be granted some legal rights enjoyed by humans.  :-*

Sandra covers her head with a cloth to protect herself from the public gaze :

at the Buenos Aires Zoo 

                           

Lawyers had appealed to free Sandra from the Buenos Aires zoo :

by arguing that although not human, she should be given legal rights.

They had argued that she was being illegally detained.

The singular case hung on whether the animal was a "thing" or a "person  8)

In December a New York State court threw out a request to free a privately owned chimpanzee

arguing that the animal was property and had no legal rights. 

Lawyers had filed a "habeas corpus" writ :

in her favour last November over

"the unjustified confinement of an animal with probable cognitive capability"

Snoopster !!

pronounced : ha-bay-us kor-pus   ::LOL::