Students make a stand against animal rights extremists
On Saturday, 25 February, students and academics from universities across the country, including Imperial College, descended on Oxford to make a stand against animal rights extremists. The activists' hard fought campaign against a new £20m biomedical research centre has extended to threats against the staff and students of Oxford University.
The centre, which is still under construction, has been subject to extensive delays since building work began in July 2004. Development was suspended for more than 16 months when contractors Walter Lilly & Co. pulled out of the project following persistent threats from SPEAK, an animal rights group, who referred to the centre as "an animal torture lab". Construction eventually resumed late last year under a new unnamed contractor.
The pro-animal testing group PRO-Test, founded by 16 year old Laurie Pycroft, organised the demonstration in response to the apparent `declaration of war' waged against Oxford University by the Animal Liberation Front. In their violent lobby against the use of animals for scientific research the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) has stated that all academics, students and companies working at Oxford are "legitimate targets" admitting responsibility for attacks on the Hereford and Corpus Christi College boathouses and on the home of a GlaxoSmithKline employee last year. More recently `The Front' launched a scathing personal attack on the young founder of Pro-Test, who has received countless threatening emails and death threats since he initiated the fight-back campaign. After an arson attack in Oxford last year, one extremist web site threatened: "You cannot stop us; we are free to attack you at will, whenever and wherever we choose." The ALF's own web site warned that the worst was yet to come: "This is just the beginning of our campaign of devastation against anyone linked in any way to Oxford University. Every individual and business that works for the University as a whole is now a major target of the ALF. The University have made a crass decision to take us on and we will never let them win."
The demonstration brought more than 700 scientists and students onto the streets of Oxford to defy the militant threats of the ALF, including students from University College London and Imperial College. Chanting choruses of `No more threats, no more fear, animal research wanted here,' the crowds marched under banners calling for humans to be put first. Professor John Stein, an eminent neurophysiologist, told The Guardian that, "They [the animal rights groups] have had it all their own way. They have intimidated people, but the time has come to speak up and risk it. Who knows what the risk is?" Stein, along with his fellow neuroscientist Professor Tipu Aziz, is publicly backing the PRO-Test campaign. Their move bucks the long-established trend of scientists keeping their heads under the parapet for fear of reprisal. There has been a growing fear of protesters launching personal attacks since the Huntingdon campaign of 2001 in which the head of Huntingdon Life Sciences was beaten with a pickaxe handle outside his home. Other tactics used by animal rights activists have included letter bombs, arson and the exhumation of an elderly woman's corpse in a cruel attack against the deceased's grieving relatives, who farmed guinea-pigs for use in research. The body has still not been returned, although the farm has since been closed.
Both SPEAK and the Animal Liberation Front were present at the demonstration. Whilst the ALF made clear their threats to PROTest supporters, representatives of SPEAK were clear to assert their position as a non-violent organisation. Their web site, however, adopts a menacing tone, informing those associated with the building of the lab that they will "rue the day they ever thought they could profit out of the suffering of innocent animals." Both anti-vivisection groups have refused to acknowledge the role of animal experiments in producing major advances in medicine.
Recently, US security experts told Reuters that Britain was "the Afghanistan of animal rights extremism", comparing them to extreme US pro-life groups involved in the bombing of abortion clinics. However, the time for animal protesters to persecute the silent majority may be over. Last year the Government passed the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act making it a criminal offence to cause economic damage to organisations carrying out animal research in the UK. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has reported a significant fall in the number of abusive letters, home attacks and property damage in the last two years, although individual attacks have become increasingly severe.
An ALF spokesman attempted to play down the significance of Saturday's march referring to the event as "irrelevant". However, the importance of the event was clear to all who attended; the protest was one of the first of its kind, and marks a radical shift in the attitude of researchers and the general public to militant groups like the ALF and SPEAK. The PRO-testing lobby are not denying the animal liberation groups of their right to protest. They are simply speaking out against the harassing of scientists and their families, arguing that such activity merely stifles the animal rights debate. PRO-Test plan to demonstrate in London later this year and hope to draw support from at least 5000 supporters.
