On Saturday 6th September two hundred activists made it to Ledbury, Herefordshire, for the Carnival Against Vivisection in solidarity with political prisoner Sean Kirtley. The day of action was called by various groups in resistance to the imprisoning of peaceful campaigners under SOCPA legislation, and as a stand for the animals suffering inside vivisection laboratories.
Protesters met on the grass verge, where the police held them allowing a maximum of 15 at a time to demonstrate outside Sequani labs. Shortly after campaigners made a spontaneous break for the labs, with police responding by blocking the bridge to push back the crowd, creating minor scuffles. Multiple attempts were also made to access the labs using various pre-planned routes, meeting police each time, some of which had dogs. Protesters then regrouped at the grass verge to march the original route around town.
Newswire: Sequani demo | Carnival Against Vivisection - Arrest Witnesses Appeal | Carnival Against Vivisection - some thoughts | Carnival Against Vivisection - Latest
Previous features: Carnival Against Vivisection | Sequani Besieged by Surprise Action
Related links: Free Sean Kirtley | Stop Sequani Animal Testing | Antispeciesist Action | Animal Liberation Front | Bite Back | NETCU Watch | FIT watch | Western Animal Rights Network | Indymedia UK Stop Sequani topic page
The following is text is from the Free Sean Kirtley website: http://www.supportsean.wordpress.com
Sean Kirtley was sentenced to four and a half years in prison after an 18 week trial which was at the time the longest running animal rights trial in history. He was found guilty of "conspiracy to interfere with contractual relationships so as to harm animal research organisation".
Sean along with many others had his door smashed in and his house raided by police back in 2006 as part of “Operation Tornado” which was designed to start a case and try and lock up peaceful animal rights campaigners using new SOCPA legislation which was created to protect the vivisection industry from effective campaigners such as Sean and the Sequani defendants.
He was behind the SSAT (Stop Sequani Animal Testing) website and was seen by the police as the organiser of many the demonstrations against Sequani and suppliers of Sequani. He never himself actually broke the law during any protests, the police were present for most of the demonstrations he attended.
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