Students protest against animal rights campaign
Donald MacLeod
Wednesday February 22 2006
The Guardian


Students and staff at Oxford University are to defy animal rights campaigners
and demonstrate in support of a controversial £163;20m research facility.

Organisers, PRO-Test, expect the rally on Saturday to attract between 200 and
500 people, including students from University College London and Imperial
College London.

The new biomedical facility has been targeted by animal rights protesters and
work was halted for 16 months when the contractors pulled out in the face of
threats. Building has now resumed, but the campaigners are widening their
activities to target firms or donors connected to the university.

Speak, an Oxford-based group which has called its own anti-university
demonstration for Saturday, insists on peaceful protest, but the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) has threatened violence and damage to property belonging
to any bodies maintaining contacts to the university.

A website posting by the ALF claimed it had attacked Oxford Architects and
warned: "This is just the beginning of our campaign of devastation against
anyone linked in any way to Oxford University. Every individual and business
that works for the university as a whole is now a major target of the ALF. The
University have made a crass decision to take us on and we will never let them
win."

Saturday's pro-laboratory demonstration, starting in Broad Street, will hear
speakers including Dr Simon Festing, director of the Research Defence Society,
Professor Tipu Aziz, consultant neurosurgeon at Oxford, local Liberal Democrat
MP Dr Evan Harris, and Laurie Pycroft, founder of PRO-Test.

A poll of 210 students published by the student newspaper Cherwell, found that
85% of students believed the labs should be completed.



Scientists to speak out for animal tests
Oxford academics risk retaliation from extremists by going public
Sandra Laville and Robert Booth
Friday February 24 2006
The Guardian

Two leading academics at Oxford University have decided to face down threats of
violence from animal rights extremists and speak publicly in favour of the
building of a controversial £18m research laboratory in the city.

Although scientists are advised to remain silent for fear of attacks, Professor
Tipu Aziz, a consultant neurosurgeon, and Professor John Stein, a
neurophysiologist have told the Guardian they believe it is time to stand up to
the radicals who have attempted to stop the project.

"I think that it is important to speak out," said Prof Aziz, whose research into
Parkinson's disease involves the use of primates.

"The ALF [Animal Liberation Front] are actively now saying that anyone in Oxford
is a target. They have had it all their own way for a long time. What we are
seeing in Britain today is a minority dictating how the majority of this country
live and that is as undemocratic a process as can be imagined. Animal research
is absolutely essential to medical progress and a lot of research being done in
Oxford is critical."

He and Prof Stein will address a march on Saturday, the first demonstration
supporting the construction of the laboratory.

Extra police are being drafted into Oxford for the march because it clashes with
another being run by Speak, the protest group opposed to building the new animal
research facility.

Prof Stein, who runs the laboratory where research into Parkinson's and dyslexia
is carried out, said he knew there were dangers involved in speaking at the
march.

"You have to be really passionate about this to put your head above the parapet
and not many do," he said. "Some of these people are loonies and do the most
awful things. Let's be clear, we are all taking a risk, but I feel it is so
important I am prepared to take that risk.

"The anti-vivs have had it all their own way. They have intimidated people, but
the time has come to speak up and risk it. Who knows what that risk is?

"I feel passionately that animal experiments have benefited mankind enormously
and almost all of the medical advances of the last 100 years have happened
through animal experiments. People just don't seem to know this, it hasn't been
got across."

The movement in defence of animal research at Oxford is growing amid increasing
tension. In recent weeks members of the ALF have been encouraging and directing
a violent campaign against university funders, students and researchers through
postings on a website based in Florida. Set up by undergraduates in a rearguard
action to this increasingly voluble campaign, the pro-animal testing movement is
also using the internet to spread its message.

Work was restarted on the lab in November after a year's delay when the original
contractor, Montpelier, pulled out amid threats and intimidation from animal
activists.

Today the identity of the new contractor, which operates on South Parks Road
behind a five metre (15ft) barrier remains a secret. Builders wear balaclavas
and the vehicles involved are all unmarked.

Under the terms of an injunction obtained by Oxford, noisy demonstrations
against the lab are allowed to take place each Thursday, within a cordon
opposite the building site.

But behind the public face of the anti-lab protest anonymous extremists from the
ALF are encouraging the use of increasingly violent tactics. On a direct action
website, Bite Back, registered to an address in West Palm Beach, Florida, the
ALF posts notices announcing attacks on anyone linked to the university and
calling on supporters to "do whatever it takes" to "blow these fucking monsters
off the planet".

Extra security has been offered to many researchers and leading figures at the
university and students have been warned to be vigilant.

One of the tests for new electrical therapies carried out in Prof Stein's
laboratory involves electrodes being placed in the brains of monkeys which have
been given Parkinson's; something he says is painless because there are no pain
receptors in the brain. On the Speak website this experiment is highlighted and
he is accused of "inflicting the most horrific suffering on innocent creatures".

Other researchers will remain silent on Saturday, privately believing Prof Aziz
and Prof Stein are taking a huge risk. One, who would not be named, said it was
not even sensible to discuss animal testing anywhere publicly in Oxford for fear
of being overheard by anti-vivisectionists.

Officers from Nectu, the specialist unit monitoring animal rights extremists,
will watch events on Saturday along with Thames Valley police. "The track record
of animal rights extremists shows there is a high level of criminality
associated with it. All threats are being taken seriously," said a police
source. But the police appear powerless to act against the Florida website.

The FBI says it is "aware" of the man behind it, Nicolas Atwood, a Florida-based
activist but they cannot close it down because that would breach the First
Amendment, protecting freedom of speech. Mr Atwood told the Guardian he was a
volunteer editor for the site. "The ALF is made up of compassionate individuals
who act on their conscience, not on the orders of some mysterious leader," he
said.

"Bite Back's mission is to support animal rights prisoners of conscience and
report on current events in the struggle. Its editors, designers and
contributors, although maybe sympathetic are not responsible for any unlawful
act taken in pursuit of such benevolent goals."