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.

“Saved” Newchurch Guinea Pigs Victory March Sat 3rd September 2005

Gary | 03.09.2005 23:41 | Animal Liberation | Birmingham | Oxford

Today was a different kind of march for the animal rights movement, this was a victory march, as the Halls, the owners of the guinea pig breeding farm at Newchurch had announced that they were closing the business down and would no longer be supplying the vivisection industry, as a result of actions from the animal rights movement and a disproving general public.

Free me
Free me

batrayal
batrayal

cops
cops

cops again
cops again

more cops
more cops

silent and somber
silent and somber

in the town
in the town

more trouble makers
more trouble makers

Trouble maker led away
Trouble maker led away

cheers of victory
cheers of victory

joy
joy

Dance
Dance

guinea pigs jump for joy
guinea pigs jump for joy

Victory guinea pig
Victory guinea pig

free them all
free them all

hells angel still on the case
hells angel still on the case

Free me please
Free me please


Staffordshire police force had already imposed a section 14, upon the protest rally and was busy handing out copies of these to people turning up for the march. Not that any one was bothered mind; as today was a different kind of march for the animal rights movement, this was a victory march, as the Halls, the owners of the guinea pig breeding farm at Newchurch had announced that they were closing the business down and would no longer be supplying the vivisection industry, as a result of actions from the animal rights movement and a disproving general public.

The first request of the day for many was mingling around the stalls and buying new t-shirts saying SAVED Newchurch Guineepigs and people were updating their wardrobes and getting good food and chilling out. After an hour and a half of chatting and meeting up with old friends an estimated 200 people had arrived to here from a host of speakers in the movement, who sadly, could not speak, as they were banned from entering the UK or otherwise detained! So a speaker from the campaign was forced to read out letters, which resulted in their message “still” getting out to the masses and the crowed that had gathered attentively to hear what had to be said; cheered jubilantly and loudly in a buoyant mood that was to last through out the day, regardless of what the police did or the authorities imposed, showing that the animal rights movement will not just lie down and take it, and that they can dish it out just the same.

The march started of a little after 2 o’clock and was silent in its nature for the first half, out of a mark of respect to all those animals that have died needlessly. This was accompanied by a lone drummer, who marked out the beat of the slow march in a haunting manner. At a designated point the march burst in to a loud screams of triumph, cheer and victory that had no sound of dying or fading for the rest of the march that filled the streets of Burton on Trent in an exhilarating manner. People were dancing down the streets and waving their arms in a salute of victory despite the taunting of a couple of individuals that were not part of the procession and looked like they were trying to cause trouble for the march, but the marchers were having none of it today, as today was their day!

Despite the jubilant mood, the police had to show their prejudices against the animal rights movement by arresting a 13 year old girl for handing out leaflets (yes, handing out leaflets, a highly criminal act these days!). Apparently two or three others were arrested when they tried to plead with the police to show some logic and reason for their actions, while the young girl was being arrested.

Throughout the day I spoke to some individuals from a variety of campaign groups and asked them for their view on the announcement of the Halls closing their doors for the last time at the farm from hell.
Although the Halls are quitting, they still have guinea pigs in the farm and SNGP are still applying pressure to get the guinea pigs to good homes and not to the labs that the halls are hoping for, despite their claims of concern over animal welfare, another from the same campaign said in addition to seeing through the closure of Newchurch we are hopping to give support to other established campaigns like SHAC and stopping any university from experimenting on primates. When I asked if it was worth the struggle they all replied along the same lines of “absolutely, it is well worth the struggle to stop animal torture, but no one here can begin to understand what this (victory day) means here, we are not stupid, we are equal to all those campaigns against slavery, against racism and all the rest, they are all valid, all need fighting for”.

The policing has been awful, the wrongful arrest rate has been through the roof, Police Officer Rushden one day drove down from the house and stopped to wind down his window and said “you will never close us down” how biased is that, he even began to think he was working for the Halls, (some swear he was) and we appreciate how awful they have been and so do the ALF, they haven’t been able to catch anyone.
Despite all the laws they tweaked and have brought in they still can’t stop us and won’t, we get stronger and more powerful when we become vulnerable as our tactics change and we try even harder to close them down because we know we are a threat and are having an impact on the businesses who try to profit from animal torture.
The battle continues though as it was noted that police intelligence gathering officers from Oxford and Cambridge were there armed with video cameras, but hey we won this one so let’s do the rest.

 http://www.liberation-now.org/

Hi res images available on request, free for non commercial use under creative commons license
Pictures:
Gary Austin: Radical Images

Gary
- e-mail: radical_images@yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://http:/spaces.msn.com/members/radical-images

Comments

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