Saturday 25th April
National March and Rally in London to mark World Day for Animals in Laboratories.
Meet 12 noon, Hyde Park, Reformers' Tree, near Speakers' Corner.

There is less than one month to go until the National March and Rally in London to mark World Day for Animals in Laboratories on Saturday April 25th. Already campaigners are planning to travel to London from across the UK, with still more coming from other countries such as France, Sweden, Holland, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain.

If you haven't already made travel plans, now is the time. Coaches and minibuses have been organised from around the country, contact us for details of transport from your area.

It promises to be the biggest anti-vivisection march for years, and will bring together campaigners from many different parts of the movement. As well as seasoned campaigners, we also hope to attract many new and young activists, some of whom were not even born when many thousands regularly marched against animal experiments. With this march we hope to revive the spirit of those marches, and unite the movement in a show of strength and solidarity.

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To mark World Day for Animals in Laboratories, campaigners from all over the UK and beyond will be gathering in London on April 25 to call for an end to animal experiments. Following a march from Hyde Park through the centre of London, where we intend to take the anti-vivisection message to large numbers of shoppers, tourists and residents, we will then hold a rally at Parliament to protest against the government’s pro-vivisection policies.

It is now over 10 years since Labour was voted into government but any hopes that they would carry out their pre-election promises on animal experiments have long vanished. Soon after coming to power, the Government abandoned plans to hold an official inquiry into animal experimentation claiming this would be too costly. At the same time the Labour Party was accepting millions in party donations from powerful figures in the biotech and pharma industries, who were in return given key government positions and life peerages.

In the intervening years this has allowed the drug companies to wield huge influence over government policy. Far from the promised reduction and end of vivisection, in the past 3 years the number of animal experiments has actually started to increase for the first time since the 1970’s.

Meanwhile the Government continues to ignore growing scientific evidence that animal experimentation is a seriously flawed practice. There are fundamental physiological differences between different species, and even within species, which make animal testing unreliable and dangerous. Side effects from medical drugs are responsible for 18,000 deaths in the UK every year, the fourth biggest
cause of premature death after heart disease, cancer and stroke. Yet all of these drugs were passed as “safe” following tests on animals. Animal experiments have no place in 21st century science. The longer the scientific community denies this, the more shame it will bring upon itself.

This is the first time in years that the anti-vivisection movement has held a march in London to mark World Day, in previous years such marches attracted crowds of thousands. The march on 25 April is intended to revive the spirit of those earlier marches, to unite and mobilise the anti-vivisection movement, to attract new campaigners and to take the antivivisection message out to the public and to the heart of government.

It’s clear that we cannot rely on the government or the vivisectors to take the necessary action to put an end to this huge scandal. Please join us on 25 April and let’s make our voices heard for the millions of forgotten victims of vivisection.

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Meeting in Hyde Park

The day will begin with a gathering from 12noon in Hyde Park. Here there will be speeches and information about various aspects of the anti-vivisection struggle, and more importantly what we can all do to help end this barbaric and unscientific practice.

March through central London

At around 1.30pm we will begin the march which will take us through the centre of London, through the busiest areas of the capital, including Park Lane, Hyde Park Corner, Green Park, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, enabling us to get our message across to tens of thousands of shoppers, tourists and residents along the route.

To Whitehall, Downing St and rally at Parliament

Then the march will move on to the political centre of London, along Whitehall, past the end of Downing St, into Parliament Square and past the Houses of Parliament. Here the march will end with a rally, with speeches calling among other things for an end to government support for vivisection, and an enquiry into the whole area of animal experimentation, something which the government promised some 12 years ago before coming to power, one of many broken pre-election promises which the march will highlight.

After-March Evening event

The rally at Parliament will finish at around 5pm. From 6pm 'til around 11pm there will be an after-march info/social event at Conway Hall, which is just a short walk or bus/tube ride away. Here the anti-vivisection theme will be continued, with information stalls, films, speakers and discussions about where we go from here, all in relaxed surroundings, with lots of tasty food and drinks (all vegan).

What to bring?

Please do feel free to bring your own banners, placards, costumes, be creative, inventive and colourful, we want to make the march as eye-catching as possible. Also please bring megaphones, drums, whistles etc, let's make ourselves heard; as well as showing our anger and sorrow about vivisection, we also want the march to be a celebration of our movement and its determination to bring the suffering to an end once and for all.

Publicity

We have posters and leaflets available to advertise the march, which we can send you by post, or you can download from the website. Please help us to spread the word by distributing them to friends and fellow campaigners, or by placing them in places such libraries, health food shops, community centres, offices etc.

To order leaflets and posters

Please contact us at the address below, with a postal address and roughly how many of each you want. We have A5 colour leaflets and A3 posters (see left).

To download leaflets

Front  http://www.wdail.org/images/WDLA-for-website-2.jpg
Back  http://www.wdail.org/images/WDLAback-for-website-2.jpg

Transport

There will be transport from all over the country to the march and rally, please contact us if you want more details or check back for more info.

Other events

We are planning other events during the World Day weekend, including a social/info event in the evening in London after the march from 6pm to midnight.

Donations

The march and rally and other events for World Day in London are being organised by a coalition of individuals and grass-roots groups. Please consider making a donation to help us make the events a big success. Send Cheques/PO’s (payable to WDAIL) to WDAIL, BM Box 8623, London WC1N 3XX.

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The website will be updated with information over the coming weeks, so check in for more info soon, or contact us if you have any questions.

We'll also be sending out regular email info updates, if you want to receive these direct let us know.

See you in London on April 25th

World Day Organising Group

WDAIL, BM Box 8623, London WC 1N 3XX.