Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Brum day of action against animal cruelty

West Midlands Animal Action | 11.08.2005 15:30 | Animal Liberation | Birmingham

On Saturday 6th August, Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs organised demos against the BBC re their blatantly biased programmes about this anti-vivisection campaign. Simultaneous protests took place in London, Manchester & Birmingham. The Birmingham demo brought together nearly 30 campaigners from across the West Midlands and was a great success, as you will read in the report below, but protesters didn`t stop there! The day turned into a great day of action against animal abuse with demos at Thomas Cook(re their involvement in the trade in primates for vivisection) and McDonalds, re the murder of billions of animals every year and the devastating destruction to the planet caused by farming those animals.

Outside the BBC in The Mailbox
Outside the BBC in The Mailbox

Inside The Mailbox
Inside The Mailbox

On the march along New Street
On the march along New Street

Outside Thomas Cook in Martineau Place
Outside Thomas Cook in Martineau Place

Outside McD`s in Cherry Street
Outside McD`s in Cherry Street


The following report covers all 3 of the Brum demos and is taken from the Stop Sequani Animal Testing website  http://www.vivisection.info/ssat/aug06.html

"Trust is the foundation of the BBC: We are independent, Impartial and honest"

The BBC have recently hosted three blatantly biased programs this year concerning Newchurch guinea pig farm in Staffordshire, UK and concerning issues of democratic protest and vivisection. The first was the Radio Four Program ‘Face the Facts’, then the BBC Midlands Today ‘Inside Out’ documentary presented by Ashley Blake and the culmination being the Money Program’s BBC2 documentary: ‘The Siege of Darley Oaks Farm’ broadcast in July. We believe these programmes represent a betrayal of the BBC’s own obligations as a public service.

The BBC is designed as a ‘public service broadcasting company’ – its very own 2004/2005 statement reiterates its original Charter that espouses fundamental sentiments of non-commerciality, honesty, education and impartiality. Their 2005 statement opens with the following declaration:

“Our Purpose
Our purpose is to enrich people’s lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain
Our vision is to be the most creative organisation in the world
• Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest
• Audiences are at the heart of everything we do
• We take pride in delivering quality and value for money
• Creativity is the lifeblood of our organisation
• We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best.”
(see  http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/statements2004/docs/introduction.htm)

How is it then possible for such an ‘independent’ and ‘public’ service to broadcast three primetime programs which are deliberately economical with the truth about the Newchurch animal factory farm, so flagrantly in favour of commerciality over public education and so unashamedly prejudiced about the members of the public who protest there? (SAVE THE NEWCHURCH GUINEAPIGS)

OUR LIVES: THEIR LIES: DEMO AND MARCH

29 activists from all over the Midlands including activists from SNGP, WMAA and the SSAT campaign joined forces today to protest outside the BBC offices at the Mail Box in Birmingham. An array of banners and placards denouncing the BBC for its sickeningly one sided approach regarding its reporting on the Newchurch campaign were displayed right outside the BBC's offices and plenty of leaflets handed out to members of the public.

Four activists were electronically 'scanned' by security before being let in to the building to hand over a statement of condemnation of the BBC, whilst at the same time demanding a statement from the BBC regarding how it justifies its virtual attack on peaceful protesters through the blatantly biased 'documentary's' it has aired over the last year.

Surprise surprise there was nobody available for comment except for a BBC worker who was completely useless. The top brass will have scarpered for the afternoon as they knew full well the demo was taking place and obviously did not want to publicly justify their campaign to label all protesters involved in the Newchurch guineapig campaign as 'terrorists'. An A4 sheet of paper stuck to a stand outside the office building stated that the public access area had been 'closed' for the day. Nice one!

After an hour and a half, protesters left the mail box to march through the busy streets of Birmingham condemning the BBC for all to see and hear. The megaphones were in use and plenty more leaflets handed out to the public. If the BBC think that they can try and turn the public against peaceful animal rights campaigns they learnt today that this comes at a price. The price of being named and shamed for being the biased bigots that they are. See  http://www.liberation-now.org/

THOMAS COOK SHUT UP SHOP IN BIRMINGHAM DURING DEMO

Fifteen activists then made their way to supporters of primate torture Thomas Cook in Martineau place, Birmingham. The shop was briefly occupied by a few activists whilst the rest set up camp outside the shop. The demo outside soon became noisy and informative as Thomas Cook were damned for their continued support of the Mauritian tourist trade and because of their disgraceful show of ignorance regarding the kidnapping of primates on the island of Mauritius whose final destinations are sick and evil vivisection laboratories like Huntingdon life sciences and Covance.

Many hundreds of leaflets were given out to members of the public letting them know about the Thomas Cook/Mauritius connection. It didn't take too long for five police officers to arrive on the scene who were reasonable. Three of them remained inside Thomas Cook for a while whilst Thomas Cook locked their doors from the inside.

After the police finally left around 3.30, the workers inside Thomas Cook turned the lights off, got their coats on and vacated the building! Job done! That will have cost them a packet! When will they learn? Supporting animal abuse does not pay! Time to boycott Mauritius Thomas Cook and get rid of the demos at your outlets that are happening throughout the UK. See  http://www.gatewaytohell.net

McMURDER McPOLLUTION McDESTRUCTION DEMO AT McDONALDS

Having completed the task at Thomas Cook, nine activists then went on to hold a very informative demo at McDonalds in the city centre. The megaphone was put to excellent use as the public were informed about the activities of McDonalds, namely the horrors of factory farming, the destruction of the environment and the climate change this creates, and of course people were urged to turn vegetarian to help to alleviate the planet of the scourges mentioned above.

Again, many leaflets were handed to members of the public and customers of McDonalds who were going in and out of this filthy place. Groups of people stood by to listen to the megaphone speeches which included a relevent piece on the tornado that struck Birmingham a few weeks ago linking this freak event to climate change caused by the destruction of the environment by companies like McDonalds - A company that destroys vast areas of land and trees, clearing huge areas to graze cattle for its disgusting death burgers. See  http://www.mcspotlight.org/

Overall a fantastic day of demos for the animals and great to team up with so many excellent compassionate people from the Midlands!

West Midlands Animal Action
- e-mail: wmids_animalaction@yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/wmids_animalaction

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech