PETA Exposes Shocking Truth Behind 'origin Assured' Fur Sold At Harvey Nichols

Paloma Faith Narrates Video Campaign Reminding Shoppers That All Fur Is a Product of Cruelty

London – Foxes with skinless paws forced to live beside their decomposing cagemates and a mink with an untreated head wound so severe that the animal's brain is visible are just two of the stomach-churning scenes in PETA's new video montage, narrated by Paloma Faith, of footage taken from farms in countries that make up part of the fur industry's grossly misleading "Origin Assured" marketing scheme. And now, armed with the exposé, PETA is calling on Harvey Nichols – which recently abandoned its decade-long fur-free policy in order to start selling "Origin Assured" fur – to rejoin virtually all other UK department stores, including competitors Selfridges, House of Fraser and Liberty, in banning fur.

"The 'Origin Assured' fur label serves no other purpose than to make people feel better about supporting one of the cruellest industries in existence", says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. "PETA is calling on Harvey Nichols to stop misleading its customers and reinstate its fur-free policy – permanently."

The "Origin Assured" label was created by the International Fur Federation and other big players in the fur industry, including Saga Furs and Kopenhagen Fur following years of plummeting sales. While the label attempts to reassure the public about the treatment of animals raised and killed for fur, PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to wear" – points to the tremendous suffering of animals whose fur qualifies to bear the "Origin Assured" label and underscores that fur from any animal of an "approved species" trapped or farmed in any one of 29 countries can potentially be labelled "Origin Assured", including the animals whose suffering is revealed in PETA's exposé.

As Paloma says in the video, "All fur is the product of extreme cruelty and abuse of animals. That's why I always choose faux fur. With so many extraordinary alternatives on the market, there's just no excuse for tearing the fur off an animal's back."

For more information about "Origin Assured" cruelty, please visit PETAUK.org/originassured. To join PETA in asking Harvey Nichols to reinstate its fur-free policy, click here. Broadcast-quality footage is available for download here.