"Thought 2008 was good?" No, not really. The Shac leadership was convicted and will be banged up for years. :( It seems that there haven't been any significant inroads into closing HLS in several years now since all the police raids and new laws stopping home visits, etc. Am I wrong? Lets hope I am and the credit crunch will crunch up HLS!

If the SHAC 'leadership' has been banged up, then why is the campaign continuing undeterred and undefeated? Does it not show that there was not the leadership presumed?

Finally, why bother saying that home visits have been outlawed? Vivisectors, executives et all have been visited at their homes this year by the ALF and others. Home and office demos have continued since the convictions. Doesn't stop anything, its just a ridiculous pipe dream.

The legal and illegal elements of the campaign continues!

re: Rod Munch: You may be trying the subtle approach of pretending to be a partly sympathetic but negative activist, but it is still obvious you are just a cop or animal abuser trolling.

Huntingdon Life Sciences would have gone bust years ago if the government and the pharmaceutical industry weren't propping them up for political reasons. The company is a joke and I don't think there is an unlimited pot of money to be doled out to them, especially with the recession.

Here's to a bad year for HLS and more victories for SHAC!

No, @non, because I don't feel the same about things as you doesn't mean I'm a copper or an animal abuser. I'm an AR activist who's just become tired of the SHAC way of doing things and I think it's not helpful to put out reports saying that SHAC was a peaceful campaign when I saw with my own eyes how aggressive a lot of it was.

@Rod Toddy:

sorry, I call bullshit on this one. I don't say you are a troll just because I disagree with you. There are many people I disagree with here who aren't trolls, but you look and smell like a troll.

No genuine AR activist would make statements like those on a public forum, especially so close to the sentencing, no matter what their personal differences or disagreement over tactics. It's one step away from being a grass.

SHAC was and is a legal, hard-hitting, effective campaign. The SHAC 7 are being criminalised for the actions of other, anonymous, people who DID take illegal direct action.

I know who the person who is making lotsaof negative comments about SHAC is. I do not know him personally but in 2003 someone did good undercover work and when the police targeted him he felt very unsupported by SHAC. I have heard both sides of the story, albeit not in any depth and he certainly may have some sort of greivance however this man went to the Sunday Times and wrote an article attacking SHAC. Maybe the same person has also commented on SHAC WATCH denouncing SHAC and the animal rights movement.

If this person cares about animals however bitter he feels he should just steer clear of SHAC and engage with the many other animal rights campaigns. We all have hurts and upsets with one another that could fill Indymedia and really divide the movement but this is not the right way to do things. Having a good moan to trusted friends when all else has failed is surely better although of course the police will use this sort of thing if you are being bugged. Criticism of SHAC should be constructive.

Really importantly we should support one another much more. There are many times when I have felt isolated and many times when I have not supported others as much as I should have done. The state finds it much easier to turn disgruntled activists against one another. Even if you really dislike someone if they are a good activist and hurt or in prison that does not mean that they do not need your support.

Whilst the forces of darkness continue to circle around us i offer my warmest congratulations to lynn for her incisiveness. As usual. she has hit the nail on the head. I refer to her comment:

"Really importantly we should support one another much more. There are many times when I have felt isolated and many times when I have not supported others as much as I should have done. The state finds it much easier to turn disgruntled activists against one another. Even if you really dislike someone if they are a good activist and hurt or in prison that does not mean that they do not need your support."

Please print this off and put it where you can see it every day. Love and peace to you all in the new year.

who makes 'negative' comments is a cop or animal abuser, some people are actually just making genuine comments about how they feel! I wish that people wouldn't constantly attack someone as being a 'troll' everytime a slightly critical comment comes up under an article. Yes, there will b some cops and animal abusers leaving comments on indymedia articles, but there will also be genuine animal rights activists and members of the puclic as well.

In the case of SHAC, not every animal rights activist supports them (same as Peta and other large organisations), and not every animal rights activist knows what's going on with SHAC as well as other activists - for example, the first comment left on this article said that the person hopes that HLS will fall and put a " :( " after mentioning the "SHAC leadership" being convicted. Yes, not solid evidence that the person is genuine AR, but definitely not deserving a reply calling them "Brian Cass supporter". There's no solid evidence of that either.

Maybe that person only knows what they've heard in the media about SHAC and is worried that the campaign will go downhill. Personally I know it hasn't as demos began again very soon after the raids last year and have continued going strong, with a lot of support for the prisoners as well.

Anyway, why don't we stop leaving comments calling people trolls, cops, animal abusers, etc. when we have no evidence to suggest these people are. It's a waste of time and a lot of the comments I've seen on articles before in reply to 'trolls' have been quite abusive and negative. Doesn't show activists in a very good light does it?

The person making derogatory comments about SHAC seems to be one and the same to me,using various names. As has been said, NO true AR campaigner would be derogatory about others. We have a solidarity even when we do not know each other. The comments on here are made to mischief make. AR people support and respect each other. You should try it sometime copper!

I agree with the previous comment "Solidarity" by anon.

I know people who have big personal disagreements with other activists or campaigns, but they would never dream of making them publicly known in a forum such as this. That should be obvious. The other massive giveaway that this is a troll is the timing of it.

If people want to discuss tactics or ideology in a general way, fine, but this is the perfect way of how not to go about it, unless you are a deliberate troll or state asset.