Note - This is just a corporate repost
 http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/02/violent_animal_rights_groups_m.php

1. The Dutch government, similar to many/most states, claim that minor property destruction (such as painstraipping a car) is violence, when carried out for political aims, and therefore so is arson arson property. Violence is the act of physical harm against an individual, such as the abuse in vivisection labs, factory farms, slaughterhouses, or in Gaza.

2. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) are a non-violent direct action movement working in anonymous cells with no structure or hierachy. ALF guidelines are:

TO liberate animals from places of abuse, i.e. laboratories, factory farms, fur farms, etc, and place them in good homes where they may live out their natural lives, free from suffering.
TO inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals.
TO reveal the horror and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors, by performing non-violent direct actions and liberations.
>>> TO take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.

 http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/alf_credo.htm

3. The Dutch government are therefore asking a non-violent movement (not organisation) to denounce non-violent property destruction (which they claim is violent) to deter radicals. Good luck with that one, do you really think activists are going to come forward given that they'll face time in prison for confessing to their activities? Nobody is that stupid!

Why lie and bother then?

The government, like most, are asking aboveground campaigners and organisations to denounce non-violent property destruction from cells such as the ALF in a bid to shut down the wide-spread support from grassroots activists. This is the clearest example of trying to divide and conquer a movement, using the falsehood that activists are carrying out violence in the Netherlands against animal abusers - which simply isn't true.

I imagine some mainstream campaign groups will sign up, in an attempt to swell support from liberals, pacifists and others, unaware of the real implications of the idea. This is only an attempt to next discredit and further criminalise civil disobedience, followed by the idea of legal protests - as has happened in the UK  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419733.html

This won't affect ALF ations though, they'll just keep on coming...

violence against the person does not have to be physical

What if they accepted to sign these agreements on condition that the state and the companies ended their violence? Would the papers even report such a move?

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