NGO People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has staged a protest outside Hong Kong Technology Venture Company (HKTV) headquarters to condemn the “technology group’s years of horrific experiments in which dozens of animals have been decapitated, dismembered, and kept alive for up to seven hours.” PETA supporters stage a protest outside HKTV’s headquarters on April 10, 2026, condemning animal experimentation. Photo: PETA Asia. On Friday, four PETA Asia supporters posed as pigs and sheep, languishing in mock blood, outside the parent company of HKTVmall in Tseung Kwan O. One protester held a placard reading: “HKTVmall: Modernist Research. Dump Animal Experiments.” HKTV disclosed a controversial science project in its latest annual report on March 30, saying that it had carried out 38 experiments over the past four years in which “animals’ limbs or heads were separated from their bodies.”
The tests, part of an ongoing “Life Science Project,” aim to develop equipment to maintain “the viability of detached body organs,” according to the firm. HKTV reported that the animal limbs remained viable for about 46 hours, while heads survived for roughly seven hours, which its research team claimed was the world’s first. A HKTVmall branch in Kowloon Bay. File photo: Wikimedia Commons. The animal NGO has urged a boycott of HKTVmall. “HKTV’s disturbing head and limb severing experiments are straight out of a horror film, and they must be stopped before another animal endures a terrifying and prolonged death,” said PETA Asia President Jason Baker in a Friday press release. “Experiments on animals overwhelmingly fail to benefit human health, and PETA is urging everyone to speak out against this cruelty by refusing to buy products from HKTVmall until HKTV bans these experiments.”
HKTV’s annual report said that the tests could eventually help with applications relating to organ transplantation and potentially extending the human lifespan. However, the firm admitted it cannot predict the project’s success rate or financial return.
‘No significant progress’
Citing research from 2008 to 2015, Baker of PETA said last week, “Studies examining spinal cord injury experiments on animals show that decades of such work have not led to significant progress in reviving spinal neurons, because of fundamental interspecies differences.” Pigs. File photo: marnock/Pexels He also noted that some prominent US agencies had shifted away from animal testing in recent years, while “human-relevant technologies,” such as non-invasive human imaging, have developed to improve human health.
In an emailed reply to HKFP on April 1, HKTV said its Life Science Project was “not intended to cause unnecessary harm to the animals, with the objective of improving the quality of life for the elderly, while contributing to advances in organ preservation, limb transplantation, and blood regeneration.”
The company said pigs and sheep were “commonly used” in scientific research on organ transplantation. Anaesthetics were used during the experiments, and the procedures were in line with “regulations regarding laboratory animal ethics [issued] by the Government,” HKTV added. Ricky Wong, vice chair and group CEO of Hong Kong Technology Venture Company (HKTV). File photo: Supplied. The research team is led by professionals such as “neurosurgeons, neurologists, veterinarians, university professors, anaesthesiologists, and research specialists,” the company said, without providing the names of the team members. It said alternative experimental methods had not worked.