Summary Germany voted Friday to tighten its law against bestiality in a bid to protect animal welfare.
BERLIN - Germany voted overnight Friday to tighten its law against bestiality in a bid to protect animal welfare and stipulating a heavy fine for violators.
The new legislation, which passed the Bundestag lower house of parliament in a late-night vote but still requires approval by the Bundesrat upper house, forbids sex acts with animals or supplying animals to others for sex.
Bestiality had been removed from Germany s penal code in 1969 and since then had only been against the law if "significant harm" is inflicted on the animal.
The new law will make the practice punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros ($33,000).
But the president of a group claiming to represent 100,000 people in Germany who engage in the act of bestiality or feel a sexual attraction to animals, ZETA, threatened to challenge the law before the Federal Constitutional Court.
Michael Kiok, who lives with his eight-and-a-half-year-old dog Cessie, said in a statement that he intended to stop "the discrimination against and persecution of zoophiles in Germany".
The anti-bestiality legislation is part of a package of measures aimed at bolstering animal protection in Germany and to bring the country in line with a European Union directive.
It continues to allow certain practices common in livestock breeding such as the castration of pigs and the branding of horses.
