This is the militant vegan who is causing a stir on social media “butt checks” and assaults – catastrophic situation with English police

Some revere her as a “brave animal rights fighter”. Others call her “the most annoying vegan in the world”. We’re talking about Raffaela Raab, who caused a stir on social media under the name “the militant vegan”.

The 26-year-old Austrian has been drawing attention for some time with her videos about animal rights. Her TikTok profile “die militant Veganerin 3” alone has more than 100 million hits. Her username says it all: Raab’s biggest concern – veganism – is propagated uncompromisingly in her videos. Whether with passers-by in public places or directly with users in front of their smartphone: it appeals to what comes to his mind.

“As long as you’re not vegan, you’re an animal abuser,” she told a young woman on the street. “Anyone who eats meat is a murderer,” she clarified in another video. And, “Vegans are the better people.”

Once she even yelled at a small child with a megaphone, “You are eating an animal that was killed because your parents paid for it. They’ll teach you that it’s okay to kill animals so we can eat their body parts.”

“Cow is raped”

The activist does not shy away from such actions. She criticizes anyone who does not share her point of view. Even vegetarians who describe themselves as animal lovers are animal abusers and hypocrites, as she often makes clear in her videos. In an interview with Watson, she explains why: “A cow that produces milk does it for her calf. The cow is raped and penetrated by human hands to make her pregnant. Then you take the calf away from her to drink the milk yourself.”

Raab’s activism is mainly directed against the speciesism, which she wants to combat. A speciesist is one who believes that humans are superior to other species and has the right to treat them as they see fit.

“It’s about the basic rights of conscious people, not to be enslaved, regardless of the species,” Raffaela Raab explains her activism. For them, speciesism is based on the same ideas as racism.

Your choice of words is always met with incomprehension among TikTok users. Not infrequently, Raab even uses Nazi comparisons and calls factory farms about concentration camps. Her style doesn’t go unnoticed on Instagram and TikTok either. Her TikTok profiles have already been removed from the video platform twice for violating the guidelines, her Instagram account once.

But Raffaela Raab is not giving up so easily. “If a profile is gone, I just create a new one,” says the activist. More than 200,000 people follow the “militant vegan 3” on TikTok. Her most successful videos have been viewed more than 8 million times. This sheer range is astounding, as Raab was practically unknown until a year ago.

From part-time vegan to militant vegan

Her only public appearance before becoming a militant vegan was on the Austrian TV show “2 Minutes 2 Million” in early 2020. In the program, young entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to present their business idea in two minutes. Then it’s time for the question-and-answer session. If you shine, you can expect an investment from a judge.

For Raffaela Raab’s presentation of her product “Koalaa”, a hot water bottle that you wear around your neck, she received 50,000 euros from the investor Katharina Schneider. In the 15-minute TV appearance, however, there is still no trace of a militant vegan. Raab comes across as calm, professional and factual on television. So when did the so-called aspiring entrepreneur become a tough activist?

It wasn’t until she was 19 that Raab started thinking about going vegan. “I was a typical girl who was shaped by social media and wanted to be slim and beautiful,” she recalls. As an aspiring medical student, she realized that a vegan diet has many benefits in achieving her optical goals.

“From that moment on, I called myself a vegan, even though I only ate 90 percent of my diet that way,” admits the activist. She always made exceptions as soon as she was invited over for friends or just felt like an animal product. At the time, she was miles away from being a militant vegan. But overnight this should change for the Austrian.

Cult leader for her own mother

“I became an activist overnight,” Raab says. It all started the night after her last state medical exam—shortly before her 25th birthday. She recalls: “We played a game in a group. The assignment was: if you were a politician, what would you ban?”

Her answer, animal products, met much resistance and rejection from the group. The tenor was that she wanted to dictate to others how they should live. And this despite the fact that she herself is not 100 percent vegan.

“I felt like a hypocrite,” Raab says. That’s when it “clicked” for her. A few days later, she took to the streets for the first time for animal rights to educate passers-by – the militant vegan was born. That was in Dec 2020.

From that moment on, activism became increasingly central and radical in Raab’s life. Even their environment changed. “All my friends are activists. I don’t like people who don’t put their heart and soul into this subject,” says the militant vegan.

Very few people she spent her time with could understand her activism. Even his own family: “To my mother I am an extremist and cult leader,” says Raab somewhat depressed. However, she has her chosen activist family on whose support she can count.

On the surface, however, the militant vegan is a one-woman show. In the past, a few jerks who felt triggered by Raab’s statements took advantage of this fact. The activist is regularly insulted on the street. She also took a beating. Last but not least, people throw eggs at her or steal her camera.

“These attacks will increase,” the vegan militant is convinced. But for them it is also a sign of success. “If I don’t evoke emotions with my activism, nothing makes sense,” says Raab.

And she is convinced that all pioneers of earlier right-wing movements were subjected to social or police repression. Whether it’s fines, hangings, beheadings or ‘being nailed to the cross’, says the activist. The militant vegan is probably unaware that she compares herself to Jesus.

laws for the animals

The doctor and animal rights activist lives an extreme life. To pursue her “heart’s cause”, she took a year off and lived on her savings. Raab has been working full-time as a pathologist in a hospital in Upper Austria for three months. Soon, she plans to reduce her workload to devote even more time to activism.

However, she doesn’t want to be combative about it. “The username was always a joke, since all vegans are labeled as militant, radical or extremist anyway,” Raab says with a laugh. All the more, she is currently facing a criminal complaint accusing her of exactly this behavior. “I would have to pay 5,000 euros because I would have smashed the window of a butcher’s shop,” explains the activist. The negotiations for this are in December and Raab sees good opportunities.

“I always move in the legal field,” says the militant vegan. In this way, she wants to keep doing activism with her videos on social media. Her dream is to get a generation to rethink the treatment of animals and end discrimination.

“I hope in five or ten years there will be the first laws on abolishing the object status of animals,” she says. Until this has happened, she will remain a militant vegan and addresses people on the street with: “Are you vegan yet or still cheeky?”