Norway Puts Fur on the Country's Olympic Team Uniforms: Many Not Happy About it

Olympic furs spark death threats

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Monday January 30, 2006 13:28 - (SA)

OSLO - Norway's sporting federation has received death threats from people angered by the use of fur on the official garb of the country's Olympic team headed for Turin in Italy next month, officials said.

"I received two messages on my mobile phone in which my life was threatened. Those who called said they were ready to kill if we did not remove the fur from the Olympic outfit," the head of the Norwegian Confederation of Sports, Karl-Arne Johannessen, told daily Verdens Gang (VG).

The Norwegian delegation will be dressed in red and white gear equipped with hoods rimmed with fur, probably from Chinese raccoon dogs.

Animal rights activists have in recent weeks urged Norway's sporting officials to pull the fur from the official team outfits.

"We have six hours of film showing that fur animals in that country are bred in abominable conditions: they are skinned alive, they are killed in an extremely brutal manner, they are bred in tiny cages," Live Kleveland with the Norwegian Animal Welfare

Alliance told AFP.

According to Johannessen, several employees of the confederation, including switchboard operators, have received death threats, including one in which the recipient was to be "skinned alive".

The federation said it was investigating the origin of the fur.

In the meantime, it said each athlete could decide for him - or herself whether to remove the detachable fur.

Sapa-AFP