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Camden Green Party member support for Camden Super Virus & Animal Testing Lab

S Chowdhury | 09.02.2009 23:22 | Animal Liberation | Bio-technology | Social Struggles | South Coast | World

A member of the Camden Green Party, Cathryn Symons who does charity work helping sex offenders has written a biased and false report on the campaigners and issues around the deadly lab planned for Camden on her website "Camden Kiwi". www.ccamden.kiwi. The comments were closed following accusations of Islamophobia towards Symons who called a local Muslim woman "extreme".

Copied from previous statement :

There are plans to build a deadly level 3 virus lab and animal testing facility on a Camden Council House estate, Somers Town, alongside St Pancras International [Eurostar] behins the British Library.
The lab has been criticised at government level over funding and by the UK security services MI5.
The lab is opposed by MPs, councillors, local residents, businesses and by people from around the World.
On her website Symons claims that she "was prompted to attend the meet and greet sessions at the Somers Town Community Center by an article in the Guardian newspaper about the lab" ...which we find hard to believe as she did in fact attend not only th early meetings held by the Somers Town Peoples Forum about the lab in November 2007 but joined in with protesters on the steps of Camden Town Hall who were chanting "No to the Camden Death Lab! Yes to the Council Houses!" on November 5th 2007.
She claims on her website that local campaigners "anonymously" put up posters about the meet and greet sessions asking people to attend the meeting. A young Muslim woman was, at the time approached and photographed by a woman from New Zealand [Ms Symons is from NZ] who asked her to remove her veil for a photograph. When the woman refused to do this or to give her name to this stranger she was accused of "putting up the posters behind a veil of anonymity".
Ms Symons has since stated that these posters were "animal rights"posters when they were put there by members of the community as part of a community campign quite openly and claimed that the campaigners are "campaigning anonymously and scaremongering". In fact Camden councillors have themselves raised security questions around the lab at the highest ranks and MI5 have spoken out regarding fears. Scientists from the NIMR have spoken to newspapers including those of Camden and Hendon about security fears concerning pathogen emissions. Foot and Mouth disease was leaked into the water supply form similar govt facility Pirbright in Surrey. Sucah a leak in a residential, built up area so close to major transport hubs would be a disaster.
Symons goes on to say that she met the head of the MRC who she calls "Les" for the first time at the meeting which we find hard to believe. She is an open advocate of the pharmaceutical industry who she calls "Big Pharma".
She went on to say in [the now closed] comments box on the BLISS Lab that "Les" has been given awards for his work. When a local Muslim campigner pointed out that racist Sir Richard Doll has also been given awards for his "contributions to science" Ms Symons retorted said that to call Sir Richard Doll racist was an "extreme" view.

Camden needs council homes in an area where there are 25,000 coucnil homes and 15,000 on a housing waitng list.

Recently a racist Conservaitive Camden Councillor was slammed for his remarks that "Somali and Bengali [who he collectivley described as Pakistani] were bringing TB into the country / community following a TB outbreak at south Camden community School in Somers Town.

Ms Syoms has stated on her website that she "welcomes" the labs and "Les" to the area "given the high incidenceof TB".

A source form the Wellcome Trust in Camden has said that there are plans for compulsory testing among "vulnerable communities at risk from TB" and that the labs planned for Somers Town and Regents Park in Camden would "be contributing to this" and that "clinical trials" would also take place at these "community labs". He would not confirm whether this would coincide with detention and these plans have yet to be officially confirmed.

Pfizer were sued for carrying out illegal, barbaric experiments on African babies and children in Nigeria. Glaxo Smith Kline were also taken to court when cuaght carryong out AIDS experiments on poor Black African Americans.

We should all be very worried about these labs planned for council estates.




S Chowdhury

Comments

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correct website address is www.camdenkiwi.org [one c ]

09.02.2009 23:31

thanks for this btw

anon


Yes it is trues that Miss Symons was at these meetings an protests in 2007

09.02.2009 23:57

It is true that Ms Symons attended the meetings and protests in 2007 and that she then wrote that "she was prompted to attend the meetings as a result of the Guardian article" written in April 2008!

Ms Symons is an outspoken critic of the Guardian which she still buys.
I do not understand how this person can claim to represent the Green Party!
Symons has launched scathing, personal aatcks on campaigners accusing them of campigning anonymously ["behind veils"] and that posters put up by local campaigners were done so anonymously and that these posters were "animal rights" posters when they were community posters.

Yes it is true that some local people do not like animal testing but this does not make them extreme. It is true that many members of the Green Party are against animal testing and tah resraech for alternatives should be given more government funding but this does not make them extreme.

How can she claim that calling sir Richard Doll [exposed for racism in the media following disgusting racist "scientific" reports] a racist is "extreme"?

Ms Symons is a well known advocate of the pharmaceutical industry who she describes as a "major local industry" who should be "welcomed" to the area. She has in my opinion lied when she claims that she was prompted by the article to attend the meetings at the Somers Town Community Center when she was already infiltrating the campaign. I believe that she was also possibly fibbing when she says that this is where & when she met "Les", the head of the MRC for the first time! If she can bend the truth like this what else will she lie about?


It should be pointed out here that not all of the campaigners in the Somers Town Peoples Forum are "baddies". For example community leader Mukul Hira is a very well respected member of the community who is campaiging about this. [He has left the Left List and joined the Lib Dems].

Camden needs council homes and community facilities not this deadly lab. Camden also needs better councillors who will listen to the people. I think too that there are more worthy people to be helping than sex offenders. Symons should be concerned about the children rahther than these terrible sex offending monsters who she describes as "terribly broken" on her website. I do not think that she is a suitable person to be representing the Green Party and I hope that she never becomes a councillor for Camden or anywhere else.

Bilal


Spelling is bad as English is not first language. Apologies for this.

10.02.2009 00:00

Please excuse spelling errors as a result of English not being first language. The article is still understandable.

Camden Man


Thank you all very much for writing these comments. It is appreciated.

10.02.2009 00:33

Thank you all so much for supporting the campaign for council homes and community facilties in Camden and for fighting against the plans for this sinister lab.

I would like to point out that my friend Amani Jannaa was reduced to tears by a woman claiming to be Miss Symons in the street. I have read the comments [now removed] on the website run by Miss Symons where Amani was called "extreme" for views that cannot remotely be described as "extreme".

Having said that I agree with Miss Symons that Camden does indeed need Council homes and community facilities and that these should be fought for although I am slightly confused by her comments on "Les" [head of the MRC] and the misleading statements that she was "prompted by a Guardian article" to attend protests and meetings about a campaign that she was already attending. I find the statements contradictory and misleading.

Mandy in Camden
- Homepage: http://www.myspace.com/stopcamdenanimallab


Racist Tory councillor blames Somali and Bengali communties for TB

10.02.2009 03:47

bnp.org.uk/tag/tuberculosis

Cathryn Symons describes anyone who disagrees with her views as "extreme".

Saira


TB "labs" / "health detention centres" could be brought to Camden = REALITY

10.02.2009 03:53

This has been building up for some time.

Why would anyone suggest that a lab "testing for TB" as is welcomed by the likes of Symons and her cohort "Les" be put on a Camden Council House estate? - Work it out.

Why would this lab need armed police? - Work it out.

Why would MI5 be sounding alarm bells over the lab plans? - Work it out.

This isn't going to be "just an animal testing lab".....

Unthinkable? So were Treblinka, Auschwitz and Belsen.

Bob


The Daily Mail link doesn't work...but the Camden New Journal ones do...

10.02.2009 04:20

Who wants to read Hate Mail anyway? ; ) x

Lee


Why do these people always support sex offenders?

10.02.2009 05:14

Why am I not surprised? It's on her website by the way.

anon


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Cathryn Symons lied about where she lives

11.02.2009 19:02

She claimed that she lives "[xx removed by moderator]"...when we know for a FACT that she lives somewhere else. [xxx removed by moderator]....lies all around then....I feel for her poor CAT.

Please do not send or do anything horrible or illegal. For the cat's sake.

[post edited to remove potential personal information as requested  http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/mmid/imc-uk-tech/2009-0228-ud ]

Noah Dread


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

The cat comment is wrong and stupid

16.02.2009 19:57

Noah....the cat comment comes over as a threat and is despicable. While I disagree with Cathryn Symons and dislike her associations with sex offenders I also find the cat comment offensive and un necessary.

Mandy in Camden


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