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Eleven suspected animal rights extremists arrested

james | 11.05.2006 08:49 | Animal Liberation | Birmingham

More sensationalist crap from the BBC. The police were going on a fishing raid seeing what they could find by raiding people involved in legal animal rights campaigning.

More sensationalist crap from the BBC. The police were going on a fishing raid seeing what they could find by raiding people involved in legal animal rights campaigning. They were all arrested so the police could legally take away people’s property. Under our draconian laws, the police can do what they want with no reprisals. Remember the only response the people who were arrested have is to take the police to court for wrongful arrest and you don’t get legal aid for this anymore. So very few people can afford to sue the police, and magistrates will believe the police when they say they had responsible suspicions those arrested were involved. And it can takes weeks, or even months to get your property back. Sometimes if they take computers, you find that they don’t work properly when you get them back, but again unless you have the finance it is hard to get any recompense for this.

Reporting like this below, is yet again being used to tar the movement as extremists, and she assumes that it was to do with the GSK letters, but she is jumping to conclusions And of course it is a real serious crime to tell someone that they will put their name and address on a website, so serious it takes at least 20 cops at least to raid the houses, yet there will be people in the same areas as the raids, who will have been burgeled that night, who can get a copper to come round at all Why isn’t this reporter asking questions about this? This reporter is real scum!

Eleven suspected animal rights extremists arrested

Eleven people suspected of being involved in animal rights extremist activities were arrested yesterday. Police were unable to say whether the arrests were connected to recent threats made to private shareholders of the drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline but did not rule it out.

Europe's biggest drug maker secured a rare High Court injunction on Tuesday night against an unknown group of animal rights activists, preventing them from publicising names of its shareholders. The move made illegal any attempt by campaigners to carry out their threat to publish on a website the names of private investors who refuse to sell their shares in GSK within a fortnight. It is the first time such an injunction has been granted to a company in Britain.

West Mercia Police detained four men and seven women in raids. Arrests were made in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire and the West Midlands, and items were seized. The 11 were released on bail while the investigation into alleged offences under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which became law last year, continues.

On Monday, GSK was inundated with calls from investors who had received threatening letters from Campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, a previously unheard of group. HLS is an animal testing company used by GSK. The animal rights group, which industry insiders suspect may include activists from other known groups, threatened to write to all GSK shareholders. It has 170,000 private investors listed on its share registry.

GSK said it was "greatly concerned" shareholders were being targeted in this way, but reiterated its involvement with HLS.

james
- e-mail: james@arcnews.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.arcnews.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Not GSK

11.05.2006 11:08

This BBC story at 16:33 on Wednesday quotes police "Police said the arrests were not in connection with letters sent to shareholders of GlaxoSmithKline or Darley Oaks guinea pig farm....."

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4758741.stm

..


Protest Techniques

11.05.2006 12:14

While aggressive action is not nice in a campaign it does seem to work. Peaceful demonstrations are good and effective but more aggressive action makes it much more tricky for the corporations to dodge.

In addition to that the media love violence.

They sell more papers when the violence is on the front page.

Stanly
- Homepage: http://www.left-wing.net


re:

12.05.2006 09:55

Violenece against workers and individuals only distances the movement from the majority of the people, the only way animal cruelty will be stopped is by a mass movement. Acts of violence will achieve nothing when it is not backed by the majority of the working class.

Chris Strafford
mail e-mail: chris_strafford@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://www.wmanarchists.org


re recent arrests.

13.05.2006 14:40

blimey, someones read the libcom party line! trust me, the people arrested were not anti working class in any way but are compassionate, peaceful campaigners who have been targetted by the state purely because the animal rights movement is getting a bit too succesful for their liking and are affecting corporate profit to the extent to which they are compelled to act and are hitting out indiscriminately - as the report writer says, the cops are just fishing. i think anarchists could learn a hell of a lot about effectiveness and organising from ar people just for starters - i would love to see anarchists in the uk as prominent as the ar movement, but unfortunately i dont think they're even remotely relevant to the working class (which includes me).

arthur


...

14.05.2006 14:51

"compassionate, peaceful campaigners..."

So, not one of the morons that sneaks around in the dead of night digging up dead grannies then?

Meat is More-ish


What crap!

17.05.2006 13:49

This is just the usual crap from the media. Those in the midlands raided were peaceful campaigners, and the only people that will deny this are those who can't accept that Blair is trying to bring an end to all AR activity, not just the illegal stuff.

NEVER SURRENDER!

(A)

Bob the Garden Gnome


well

13.06.2006 06:41

"Blair is trying to bring an end to all AR activity, not just the illegal stuff."

on a personal level, if this were true I'd be over the moon. but on a general political level, I don't believe it is. I think the AR movements real problem lies in the lack of effort from most prevalent organisations in distancing themselves from the psychos who do all the stuff that gets in the news.

and nutjobs like that tinfoil hat case 'Tim' who post on here, ranting about corporate media and media profits from animal research (the bbc? what? you've been reading too much David Icke mate) don't exactly help the debate

Shaquila
mail e-mail: shac.is.gay@gmail.com