Crackdown over attacks on scientists
The home secretary Jack Straw is considering new powers to tackle the rising violence by animal rights extremists who target the scientific community, it was confirmed yesterday.Mr Straw is planning a full review of police powers to combat what he described as the"preposterous" and "terrible" activities of some extremists.
Scientists who met Home Office officials last month called for urgent action to clamp down on the violence against the homes and property of scientists and major shareholders in laboratories using animal testing.
Mr Straw said police were also calling for more powers to curtail protesters' activities after police figures showed 1,200 reports of animal rights attacks last year alone, causing an estimated £2.6m damage to property.
But animal rights campaigners said criminal laws were already in place to deal with violent protesters. Mr Straw told Radio 4's Today programme: "We are looking at whether there are changes in legislation that we can take which are being sought by the police to see whether we can strengthen action against these animal rights extremists. "It is worth bearing in mind that many of us would not be able to lead healthy lives were it not for the pharmaceutical companies being able to test their drugs on animals."
The announcement follows a spate of violence against laboratory staff, culminating in the explosion on Monday of petrol bombs under five cars belonging to employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a research centre in Cambridgeshire.
Julia Hartley-Brewer Guardian Thursday August 31, 2000 Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Bomb disposal officers were yesterday working to defuse a series of explosive devices found hidden in a remote copse in Oxfordshire. The cache of 'sophisticated... viable devices' was discovered by a passer-by near Witney on Friday afternoon. There are fears that they may have been placed by dissident groups of Irish republican terrorists. Some of the devices have already been taken to a laboratory for forensic investigation, a spokesman for Thames Valley police said last night.
The cache comprises a 'handful' of apparently handmade devices protected by plastic cylinders. They were hidden in the few last days or weeks and appear to be in full working order, the police say.
In May, bomb disposal experts defused nine devices at a meat-processing plant in Witney. Detective Superintendent Donlon, who is leading the investigation, said: 'There is nothing to suggest any connection with the ALF or any animal rights group. These are not in any way amateur devices.'
Earlier this year a small bomb went off underneath Hammersmith Bridge in west London, disrupting transport links.
Special report: Northern Ireland Jason Burke Observer Sunday August 27, 2000 Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Bomb linked to anti-hunt activists
A home-made bomb with the potential to kill or maim anyone within 100 yards could have been planted by anti-hunt activists, it was claimed yesterday. The device was discovered at the weekend by a gamekeeper jammed into a stone wall on a farm at Syreford, near Cheltenham.
The land is used by the Cotswold Hunt. Explosives experts say the bomb consisted of a two litre plastic bottle filled with liquid and 5lb of brass nuts. They said the nuts would have shot out like shrapnel. A timer device attached to the bomb failed to go off.
Gloucestershire police sealed off the area and closed a nearby road while bomb disposal specialists made the device safe. A spokeswoman for 721 Explosives Ordnance Depot at Ashchurch said police had indicated they could not rule out hunt saboteurs. "The item was in such an open area it might have been a test," she said. "It was potentially dangerous. If children had got hold of it I don't know what would have happened."
Special report: the hunting debate Geoffrey Gibbs Guardian Tuesday August 22, 2000 Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Animal tests are 'science, not torture'
Workers at the HSL testing laboratory, besieged by anti-vivisectionists, ask why the government that demands the tests will not defend them
A 1997 undercover video of dogs being abused by Huntingdon Life Science workers revealed a glimpse of what happens inside. However, beleaguered HLS staff said they were as shocked and sickened by what was revealed on the video as the wider public, society, and government, were the real hypocrites. Society wanted the cures promised by the biotech revolution. Government wanted to make sure the new treatments were safe, and enforced laws that demanded every new medicine be tested on rodents and a non-rodent species before it was given to humans. Yet, HLS staff complained, the government had failed to speak out publicly in their defence since they came under attack from animal rights activists.
The campaign to shut HLS down, which has persuaded institutional and individual investors, including the Labour party, to sell shares in the firm, has its darker side. In May, unknown persons set fire to four cars belonging to HLS employees. "All the attacks took place in the same village, within five minutes of each other," said Huntingdon's managing director, Brian Cass. "It's really, really lucky nobody was injured."
Two months earlier, in an attack not previously made public, another staff member had his car torched. He was away at the time, and his wife was alone in their home in a Yorkshire hamlet. "The first thing she knew about it was when the tyres exploded. She rushed downstairs and all she could see was a sheet of flame," said the HLS worker.
Another HLS employee said he and his wife had received mail threatening to kill them and their children. "We had packages delivered tricked up to look like bombs," he said. "We've had to call the bomb squad three times. We've had windows smashed, and 30 people outside the house during my son's first birthday party shouting and screaming abuse. "I've been a member of the Labour party for many years. I've been very disappointed by their attitude. It's not been 'we don't like what you do'. It's been 'we completely understand what you do, we support you, but don't expect us to support you in public'. One MP said they didn't feel able to support us in public because they feared an attack on their constituency office. From an elected MP, I find that cowardly."
The Home Office minister Mike O'Brien visited HLS recently, and the government may take legal steps to give animal researchers better protection. But figures released yesterday exposed the dilemma for a government that wants to be seen as both animal-friendly and science-friendly. Although the overall number of animal experiments fell slightly, the race to use the new genetics to develop drugs showed in a leap in use of GM lab mice and bigger animals like monkeys, cats and dogs.
Extracted from an article by James Meek, science correspondent Guardian Friday August 18, 2000 Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers
Britain to crack down on Animal Rights Activists.
LONDON - The British Government is expected to make it a criminal offense to publicize the names or addresses of scientists, bankers and shareholders involved in drug testing on animals as part of a wider crackdown on animal rights militants.
After years of targeting individiuals engaged in violent acts at the extremist end of the animal rights movement, ministers are now working with research groups and police to target the planning behind individual acts.
Such tactics extend to intimidating telephone calls at midnight, hoax bombs and floods of unwanted goods that arrive at target's homes.
The Home Office has convened a meeting with police and research organisations after a visit to Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe's biggest contract research company. The company's shares have slipped since fund managers sold their 11% shares cheaply after a bomb threat in February.
Tighter restrictions on the use of individual names and addresses look probable and the 1997 Prohibition of Harassment Act which has been used successfully against people who target fur traders is being looked at again in the light of the 1,200 reported incidents of animal rights protests last year.
Extracted from The Guardian Newspaper, 16 August 2000 Limited 2000
A police bomb disposal unit in Johannesburg detonated two suspicious packages, including a tape recorder, delivered to the US consulate yesterday. The incident occurred on the second anniversary of the day bomb blasts at the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killed 226 people and injured 4,000.
Reuters, Johannesburg
Guardian Tuesday August 8, 2000 Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
