They're wearing balaclavas because your lot threaten them for carrying out their ordinary day-to-day work. These people aren't 'arrogant', they're ordinary working class builders trying to earn money for their families, and yeah (surprise surprise) they don't want to be physically assaulted for doing so. Funny that!

I'm a student at the University, and I am so glad that building work on the facility is underway once more. This is because I believe in the primacy of academic research, and because I value the life of my elderly grandparents a million times more than that of some mouse which might have to be experimented on. I hated to see the buildings halfway up, a testement to terrorism being allowed to stand in the way of intellectual progress.

Has it escaped your notice that the new building is intended to create BETTER conditions for the animals being experimented on? That it is designed to conform to modern day standards of test-animal care?

The vast majority of people eat meat. The vast majority of people don't agree with the shrill hyperbole of the SPEAK protestors or their misguided 'cause'.

I can't wait for the pro animal testing march we're gonna have in Oxford :)

Though I am disinclined to agree with "pro-science" on all points, I would agree with the fundamental principle that ANIMAL TESTING IS NECESSARY. I have wanted to post a reply to these over-the-top articles by animal rights activists for some time, but have only just collected enough thoughts on the issue, simply because it is such a big one.

I would like to see a lot of (reasoned) debate to follow this post.

Follow this logic:

1. We need more medicines
- To fight diseases that affect HUMANS. Due to the nature of our nasty profit-focussed drug companies, these are primarily drugs that will make them richer, which are not always the products which are most needed. e.g. I would like to see more research into cheaper AIDS drugs and TB drugs to fight diseases which are huge killers in the developing world. However, it is surely better that some research is being done at all to fight disease in whatever form it may come.
- I am convinced that testing on animals saves lives of people. For me, the ends justify the means. If animals were being tested on at Oxford to research a new type of hair dye or something, I would be on the demonstration with you, but as it stands ARNOLD and HARRY, the results of these tests could save YOUR child/mother/brother/wife... would you change your tune if it was one of these in hospital. I would expect that you are principled enough to say no. HOWEVER, would you and your activist friends agree to be tested on yourselves in the place of the animals? I would be interested to see a mass-movement of animal rights activists campaigning for their right to be tested on instead of the animals. Or do you dispute the fact that drugs should be tested at all?

2. Animal Rights ARE important
- I am the first person to be arguing against the terrible conditions on battery farms. Yes, I am an occasional meat eater (maybe once a week), but I only eat organic and free-range meat, both "marks" which carry high standards of animal welfare.
- I see no fundamental problem in rearing and killing animals for food, you may disagree, but this is besides the point. Personally, I have no problem with eating an animal if it has been reared in a "normal" way. I think industrial farming is a MUCH greater evil than animal testing.

3. Where should you focus your protest?
- This brings me onto my main point, why do you not focus your ire on things you can actually change? A recent survey in a student newspaper revealed that something like 90%+ of students agreed with the new lab. This does not make us evil people; as I argued above, animal testing is NECESSARY. I would be interested to see the results of a nationwide survey on the issue, but I expect you are fighting against 90%+ of the entire country.
- What you can change, is the British attitude towards animal rights are being abused unnecessarily, e.g. on battery and dariy farms in Oxfordshire and nationwide. Would your efforts not be better spent on campaigning on these issues, which a lot of people would support if they only knew more about the huge crime that is battery farming? Many students who buy their tesco-value chicken breasts might reconsider if they knew more.
- The problem is, that now many students are alienated by frequently being called "scum" by you lot. I attempted to ask a lady on one of your demos why "vivisection kills humans", but she just screamed something about me being ashamed of myself. These sorts of activists are only in it for the "buzz" and bravado. I was lucky that someone else noticed her bigotry, and stopped to explain the issues to me. I have to say, I was not convinced, but at least he made an attempt.
- Furthermore, many of your reports seem focussed on self-importance, e.g. "animal rights protestors centre of attention in Oxford City". Being an activist isn't about being looked at, admired, or in the papers, it is about CHANGING THINGS. And I can safely say you will NEVER stop this lab being finished.

4. Retorts
- There are issues of animal cruelty that are HUGELY more prevalent than one animal lab that will test on a insignificantly small number of animals compared to the battery farming industiry.
- Although these animals being tested upon is, how to put it "unsavoury", it is to my mind necessary. I have friends who work in the zoology labs; they do NOT "torture" animals. Yes, animals are killed, but for the advancement of science towards the cure of disease, and I consider this a fair swap.
- I'm trying to anticipate arguments that someone will advance to counter my views, one may be "what if it was your pet". I admit, I have a cat who I love very dearly, and I would not like to see her cut up. However, it ISN'T her being experimented on. This may be a rubbish argument, but it is how I deal with it. We turn a blind eye to the thousands dying of AIDS, TB, Malaria, malnutrition and everything else every day. I consider human rights to be HUGELY more important than animal rights, and I would hope that most animal rights protestors would agree, or do you consider a mouse's right to life to be equal to a child's, even if that child may be in Africa and out of your sight?

5. Conclusion
- SPEAK should stop harping on about the Oxford Animal Lab. It is GOING to get built whether you like it or not. It is GOING to save the life of YOUR baby daughter who was born with a disability, or YOUR older brother who has got AIDS. So deal with it.
- If you must fight for animal rights, your energy would be better spent focussing on the huge evils of industrial farming, which you COULD actually CHANGE with the right amount of national pressure in the right places, with the absence of your laughable hyperbole and bullshit. (Is it me, or are articles by animal rights activists ALWAYS badly-written and over-the-top? Even if your arguments made sense, they would still turn most people off)
- There are greater evils in the world than animals being tested on. PEOPLE are dying every day due to hugely unfair trade rules, crippling debts placed upon them by OUR government, and CUREABLE diseases which OUR drug companies do not target because they are not profitable. These issues are more important than one animal lab, full bloody stop. Get over it.

Right.

Could people reply to this in a reasonable way, with no calling me an "evil vivisector" and stuff like that? If you want to convince people you are right, do it without your hyperbole and name-calling.

Also, if you agree with what I've said, voice your agreement!

Thanks for reading, sorry this was so long, but a lot of things needed saying. I have also posted this reply to the main news story on the centre of the Oxford page. Could people post replies there INSTEAD OF here, because then it will get more attention, and not be relegated to the bottom of the page within a week. These issues need to be argued out, not ignored.

Just as I'd support the right of the Wombles to freedom of speech, and the right to "mask up" to avoid being catalogued and blacklisted by the state police, I'd also support the right of kids to wear hoodies, and workers to wear balaclavas to protect their own identities.

Animal protestors' attacks on individual construction workers and threats of such attacks on their families are idiotics, and definitely counterproductive to that organisations aims, assuming that it might include reduction in animal experimentation.

You can't have identity issues both ways - either an individual has a right to protect their identity for their own protection (even if its only a perceived threat) or they don't - but you can't rationally call a brickie a "terrorist", unless you've a screw loose.

Of course, the word "terrorist" is also meaningless.

My own view is that the rights of animals should be placed well below the well being of all human beings, even vivisectors, so that it is immoral for a person to attack another because that person causes harm or suffering to animals. In current UK law, people who commit violence against another person are not sentenced to violent punishments, and people are animals, and I don't see the ALF pursuing violent criminals.

More positive support for the new biotechnologies which will reduce animal experimentation would be more productive for animal protestors, if a little less thrilling than direct action - but then I suspect many are really thrillseekers without a cause.

 http://wombles.org.uk/albums/opfreespeech/free4.jpg

This is an old article don’t know if it’s worth making a comment or not

I think the response to actually a serious article raising legitimate concerns is frankly crap, call your selves libertarians. You put animals of lesser value than people OK but what about your right to protest.

I think Speak is a fucking great campaign one I have been proud to support from the victory over Girton to the hope that this death camp will never be built.

The more I read pro-science’s pretences at knowing anything I just think you’re an utter wanker. Most people eat meat that makes it alright how? you might hate animals but if you use Indymedia as someone of genuine belief then you surely have environmental concerns. You say you’re a student at Oxford no one seems to believe you I think it’s more likely you’re a spook.
If you don’t know how much of an impact the meat industry has on the environment how the fuck did you get into Oxford

Others who have commented on this dismissing animal rights is damaging to your causes. The animal rights movement is wrongly labeled terrorist and it won’t be long before anyone whop is critical of the system will find themselves thus labeled. It’s only become popular to use the terrorist term against animal rights in the wake of 9/11 and it is a highly misinformed perception

I consider myself 100% pro animal/human/eco rights and try my best to carry out what I can to support these.
I am not going to pretend I think everyone in animal rights is a great person but people I do inspire me a darn site more than most people who never lift a finger to fight oppression in any of it’s forms.
If you try and take a broad view perspective of the struggles represented in animal rights it doesn’t take a genius to work out it’s a struggle very much tied in with human and earth liberation.
The wombles might have done some cool one off actions but the ideology of animal rights will bring about a lot more consciousness raising and potential for radical change like it or not!

I am not an animal rights protestor but I tend to believe in animal rights. I didn't devote any time to anti-vivisection campaigns because I thought, like most people, that it was a simple "compassion for animals above slow medical advances" issue. I did some research recently that showed it's not the case, though. It's shocking but I found out that:

- animal testing is already outdated by modern methods in many fields,
- in all fields the results transfer very poorly to humans, making the results unuseful,
- the exact wording of the animal testing requirements allows pharmaceutical companies to declare a drug to be safe despite having found very real and serious dangers with it,
- the inertia in changing the laws is exacerbated by the lobbying interests of the companies which make the drugs, perform the tests and breed the animals.

So it's not just a compassion issue, it's a real political struggle for justice. The companies involved all benefit enormously from the dodgy system that exists and would be disadvantaged if a new system that produced better drug safety in a quicker, cheaper and more humane manner was adopted. I can't speak for anyone in the campaign about their motivations but I hope they do well.