Cruelty Free Europe is celebrating news that the Italian state council has suspended cruel monkey experiments taking place at the University of Parma following findings from member organisation Lega Anti Vivisezione (LAV).

Thanks to legal evidence of unauthorised research provided by LAV the supreme administrative justice body overturned a ruling by the Regional Administrative Tribunal (TAR) in May and ordered the monkey tests to be immediately stopped.

This is the second time the state council has made such a decision after ending controversial macaque experiments at the University of Turin in January. A scientific study of the University’s animal research will now be carried out by a neutral third party to determine whether it should continue.

We congratulate our Italian members LAV for all their hard work in putting a stop to the suffering.

A LAV representative said: "it is no longer possible to blindly accept that researchers do not comply with the law and that the Ministry of Health can permit photocopied authorisations without completing the correct prior check. The EU funding lost by the universities is a small price to pay compared to the blindness inflicted on six innocent animals, who experienced considerable suffering, ended only by their death.”