new laws vs protest
reposter | 31.01.2005 20:54 | Repression
from: 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4221427.stm
more links to detail & 'have your say' - follow above
Last Updated: Monday, 31 January, 2005, 17:47 GMT
'Clampdown' on animal activists
Animal rights activists could face five years in jail for targeting firms linked to animal research facilities, under new government plans.
The amendment to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill covers suppliers such as construction firms or cleaners working for animal research firms.
Measures to stop harassment of animal research facilities and their employees are already in the bill.
Campaigners say the government's proposed laws are not justified.
The amended bill would make it a criminal offence to cause "economic damage" through campaigns of intimidation.
The plans already in the bill include giving police powers to arrest anyone protesting outside the homes of scientists - and the power to ban them from returning to a specified home for three months.
Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt told BBC News: "We can't have these extremists going way beyond the bounds of peaceful protest into these vicious campaigns of intimidation which have not been stopped by individual laws."
She added: "The simple fact is attacks by animal rights extremists put medical breakthroughs in areas like Aids, cancer and Alzheimer's directly at risk."
Ms Hewitt said the new law would not affect people's "important right" to peaceful protest but would "crack down hard" on extremists committing crimes.
She rejected suggestions by Home Office Minister Hazel Blears that new control orders to put terror suspects under house arrest would apply to animal activists, saying it was a "completely separate issue".
Greg Avery, a spokesman for anti-vivisection pressure group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, said: "The government is bringing in laws to protect people who murder animals.
"Does this mean that people who are being harassed in other walks of life - such as a woman who is being stalked - are less important?"
The powers to take action against attacks on companies in the supply chain covers company employees, their relatives, business suppliers, plus charity shops and universities.
The government plans follow attacks on centres such as the Huntingdon Life Sciences and a farm in east Staffordshire where guinea pigs are bred for medical research.
Grave disturbance
Suppliers have also been targeted - last year work on Oxford University's new testing laboratory had to be halted after contractors complained they had been harassed and intimidated by animal rights activists.
Medical Research Council chief executive Professor Colin Blakemore welcomed the announcement, saying: "It is essential that researchers and those working with them are able to carry out their work without fear of intimidation."
For the Conservatives, shadow solicitor general Jonathan Djanogly said: "We have long been calling on the government to protect the industry, which makes a significant contribution to medical research. It is welcome that they have finally seen the importance of this issue."
For the Lib Dems Dr Evan Harris said: "A law to tackle the issue of economic sabotage is clearly required in the field of medical research involving animals.
"But the Liberal Democrats will not support this measure if it applies outside of the area of animal rights extremism where there is a clear problem and where existing laws have proved to be inadequate."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4221427.stm more links to detail & 'have your say' - follow above
Last Updated: Monday, 31 January, 2005, 17:47 GMT
'Clampdown' on animal activists
Animal rights activists could face five years in jail for targeting firms linked to animal research facilities, under new government plans.
The amendment to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill covers suppliers such as construction firms or cleaners working for animal research firms.
Measures to stop harassment of animal research facilities and their employees are already in the bill.
Campaigners say the government's proposed laws are not justified.
The amended bill would make it a criminal offence to cause "economic damage" through campaigns of intimidation.
The plans already in the bill include giving police powers to arrest anyone protesting outside the homes of scientists - and the power to ban them from returning to a specified home for three months.
Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt told BBC News: "We can't have these extremists going way beyond the bounds of peaceful protest into these vicious campaigns of intimidation which have not been stopped by individual laws."
She added: "The simple fact is attacks by animal rights extremists put medical breakthroughs in areas like Aids, cancer and Alzheimer's directly at risk."
Ms Hewitt said the new law would not affect people's "important right" to peaceful protest but would "crack down hard" on extremists committing crimes.
She rejected suggestions by Home Office Minister Hazel Blears that new control orders to put terror suspects under house arrest would apply to animal activists, saying it was a "completely separate issue".
Greg Avery, a spokesman for anti-vivisection pressure group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, said: "The government is bringing in laws to protect people who murder animals.
"Does this mean that people who are being harassed in other walks of life - such as a woman who is being stalked - are less important?"
The powers to take action against attacks on companies in the supply chain covers company employees, their relatives, business suppliers, plus charity shops and universities.
The government plans follow attacks on centres such as the Huntingdon Life Sciences and a farm in east Staffordshire where guinea pigs are bred for medical research.
Grave disturbance
Suppliers have also been targeted - last year work on Oxford University's new testing laboratory had to be halted after contractors complained they had been harassed and intimidated by animal rights activists.
Medical Research Council chief executive Professor Colin Blakemore welcomed the announcement, saying: "It is essential that researchers and those working with them are able to carry out their work without fear of intimidation."
For the Conservatives, shadow solicitor general Jonathan Djanogly said: "We have long been calling on the government to protect the industry, which makes a significant contribution to medical research. It is welcome that they have finally seen the importance of this issue."
For the Lib Dems Dr Evan Harris said: "A law to tackle the issue of economic sabotage is clearly required in the field of medical research involving animals.
"But the Liberal Democrats will not support this measure if it applies outside of the area of animal rights extremism where there is a clear problem and where existing laws have proved to be inadequate."
reposter
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
Animal research is mostly non-medical!
31.01.2005 23:08
The industry loves to flaunt their humanitarian credentials as if they're all testing medicines all day? Are they f**k.
I'd be happy to see a ban on non-medical research, medical research only carried out on animals where other options are not available, and any remaining animal research subjected to thorough accountability so that the kind of sadism and abuse and general unprofessionalism that goes on behind closed doors and that was exposed in HLS labs in the late 90s for the tv documentary that started off the whole anti-HLS thing.
Ozymandias
Political
01.02.2005 12:08
Slavka
Sigh
01.02.2005 13:17
Remember the animals - they will be the losers here. The movement has been set back a generation.
Sarah
tactics and a brief history lesson
02.02.2005 14:06
animal rights "tactics" are nothing new (no offence to AR'rs!), if we look at the suffragette movement, or the black civil rights movement, or further back to peasant resistance to technology, or resistance to slavery, than actually the tactics of "extremists" today suffer NOT from going "too far", but rather being somewhat lame in comparison to the days when people were far more militant.
sarah, while there were indeed voices of criticism from the liberal end of all aforementioned movements: eg, some women complained that firebombing MP's houses, destroying golfcourses, smashing windows etc was "unladylike", most of our civil rights - that are currently being eroded - were not granted graciously from those above, but rather won through the very acts that seem to offend you.
i am jealous indeed of anyone who believes it is those villanous revolutionaries that bring about repression rather than the powerful. it is not true, but it is an easier myth to harbour naively under. it is just the same as blaming immigrants for lack of jobs, easier targets, easier to tackle than the real enemies.
by joining in the scapegoating and media hysteria about animal rights extremists than people show clearly what side they fall on. this fingerpointing helps send people to jail: and jail, as anyone who has had their liberty stolen from them knows; is one of the meanest and most violent acts of all.
sylvia p
head in the sand
02.02.2005 15:08
The reality is that it just happens to be the AR movement who has used these tactics most successful in challenging the status quo. Anyone who successfully takes on state and corporation alike and win is going to face the same. Take your head out of the sand and dont let ideological differences prevent criminalisation of protest. If the AR people hadnt been handy, the state would have found someone else to rant and rave about, eg G8 protestors/arab terrorists, who ever.
The AR movement has been facing new laws year in and year out and continues to storm ahead - I doubt if these laws will really make that much of a difference. So what if the BUAV and such like are moaning; frankly they are more concerned about their donations. The grassroots movement is not going to stop or go away, and frankly they are the ones acheiving the majority of the success.
The problem is not the nature of protest or who is doing it, but that this government is hellbent on destroying all freedom to protests. You read Indymedia probably because you are cynical of the state and corporate media, so why are you falling for their lies and deliberate obscuring of the agenda on this?
freedomtoprotest@doond.com