Mie Prefectural Police referred 12 people to prosecutors Tuesday over attainable violations of animal safety legal guidelines in reference to the alleged abuse of horses throughout a Shinto ritual.
The 12 people are suspected of getting compelled horses to climb up a steep hill through the ritual often known as Ageuma Shinji in Could 2023 and dedicated violent acts in opposition to the animals.
One of many horses fractured its leg through the ritual and was subsequently euthanized, sparking public outrage.
An investigation was launched after animal rights teams filed a legal criticism final October in opposition to the organizers of the ritual.
The Ageuma Shinji is a standard ceremony that dates again to the Nanboku-cho interval (1337-92), by which horses run up a hill. Shinto practitioners have lengthy believed that the variety of occasions the horses climb over an earthen wall that’s round 2 meters excessive close to the highest of the hill predicts the standard of harvests.
The peak of the wall within the ritual far exceeds the utmost 1.6 meters allowed beneath the principles of the Worldwide Federation for Equestrian Sports activities.
In March, Tado Grand Shrine, which hosts the ritual, submitted a written response to suggestions made in October 2023 by the prefectural board of training to point its willingness to make adjustments to the ritual to adjust to animal safety legal guidelines, such because the removing of partitions.
Historically held on Could 4 and 5 every year on the shrine within the metropolis of Kuwana, the ceremony was listed as “an intangible cultural asset” by Mie’s training board in 1978.
