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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Comments
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Free Sean
10.09.2008 13:22
fuck socpa
VPSG benefit gig
12.09.2008 19:13
VPSG and sanctuary benefit gig, Adderley Street, Digbeth, Birmingham.
Punk, reggae and dub and a vegan curry, this will be the first time since mid Sequani trial that we will all be together and can raise a glass for activist and good friend Sean.
Trial Hussy
Establishing our right to protest...
15.09.2008 09:51
In addition, although it is claimed that only a few of the rights enshrined in the Magna Carta still exist, the Magan Carta seems to have been written in such a way that future Kings, Queens, or other legislative authorities can never remove any of its rights, insomuch as it states: 'TO ALL FREE MEN OF OUR KINGDOM we have also granted, for us and our heirs FOR EVER [emphasis added], all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs'
PJ
Latest allegations are false...
23.09.2008 20:50
-Someone saw our posts and thought it would be a good way to disrupt AR. If this is the case then we as a group have to say sorry to the rest of the AR movement and especially to the animals.
or
-Those we are investigating are doing this to make our allegations look part of this rubbish.
The facts are that these posts seem to link in SHAC with other groups, this sounds exactly like Shacwatch. All these new posts are done during the working day, again the same as Shacwatch site. These people do not understand animal rights as the complain that Lynn was a hunter. In the past Sabs have condemned Lynn because she helped dig out foxes not just because she was a hunter. To someone not into animal rights the differences are small to someone into them the differences are huge. Terriermen and their helpers are the worst of the worst, outsiders do not understand the subtlety. From this we can see that these posts are probably bogus.
The earlier ones about Warn's actions have some basis and the grass we are looking for will be uncovered but these later posts are just disruption.
The most worrying comment was from Until All Are Free who responded to allegation of a grass with "So What?" . This person is likely to be one of the grasses in Warn we are after.
In the meantime the thing to do is continue fighting for the animals but do not pass your details, phone numbers, email address etc to people like Until All Are Free.
From Oldham but not Oldham Steve
Yawn... boring boring boring...
23.09.2008 23:52
Seriously though, Ill say it again because clearly the above posters of bullshit are so stupid they cannot take in the idea and structure of WARN.
WARN = A Website.
WARN = A News resource for groups in the West of England.
WARN isn't an active campaign group, it is a collection of campaign groups from the West of England. So to say WARN has infiltrators is pretty much like saying one of the groups in the west has infiltrators. Which?
These threats towards Lynn from the ALF are absolutely absurd and were weirdly posted at the same time as Shacwatch was updated with more slatting of Lynn today.
If for some SHOCKING reason some of this scaremongering is coming from real activists and not shacwatch / police / vivisection lobby take heed.
IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE UNCOVERED A GRASS TRY AND KEEP ANY INFORMATION INTERNAL AND TO YOUR TRUSTED FRIENDS, WEED THEM OUT BY FEEDING THEM INFORMATION WHICH WILL IDENTIFY THEM AS AN INFILTRATOR ****THEN**** WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN CAUGHT RED HANDED POST THEIR DETAILS ON INDYMEDIA.
IF NOT, STOP AIRING YOUR DIRTY LAUNDRY ON INDYMEDIA. IT MAKES US ALL LOOK LIKE A MOVEMENT IN DISARRAY EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW ITS NOT THE CASE.
I have never seen such bullshit on Indymedia, clearly some of the above posts are police and those trying to wind us all up.
We aren't stupid you filthy bastard coppers do you think we will give up? Do you think demos will stop? Do you think direct action will cease?
This isn't the first time propaganda has been used against grass roots activists and it sure as hell wont be the last.
As for WARN being grasses, I'm looking forward to the actual evidence and I'm not talking about the "WARN GRASSED UP MY SANCTUARY TO THE BBC" Tears before bedtime that NoGrass has been posting. We have no remorse about the exposes we have worked on in the past and will defend our actions every time. If not for the great work of the undercover BBC reporter on this occasion, Westlea would have still been taking and pocketing donations and hoarding animals. We would never had been able to get the message conveyed to so many members of the public in such a short space of time without using the media.
Any problems do email us or phone us, or if you are animal rights we can talk about it face to face this weekend in London if you are attending the Anti Fur March?
All the best,
Chris D
Chris - WARN
e-mail:
warn at riseup dot net
Homepage:
http://westernanimalrights.wordpress.com
Let's set the record straight!
24.09.2008 15:17
I was a defendant in the S145 trial with Sean and would like to confirm that all the allegations made about grassing etc are complete lies. Yes, it could be somebody trying to cause trouble within the movement, but, please, whoever you are, have some respect for the people who gave up a large chunk of their lives, preparing for and going through this trial. Also, have some respect for Sean, who is currently in prison, awaiting his appeal.
For the record too, NOBODY apart from the police and the computer expert for the defence, had a copy of Sean's hard drive. The allegation that money had changed hands over this is the most pitiful thing I have heard, since Sean's sentence.
The Sequani defendants all stayed friends thoughtout the trial, we were there for eachother, supporting eachother through the difficult times, a friendship that could probably only be truly understood, if you were one of us.
Whoever is making these silly accusations, enough is enough, please stop now, as this is the truth, from somoeone who lived through, first hand, every minute of every day of the trial.
A Co-D x
Co-defendant
Shit stirring
24.09.2008 18:57
For those who can't, and are genuinely believing that people in WARN are grasses and other rumours, remember this...
1. Indymedia is an open newswire. ANYONE can post under any name and say ANYTHING they want. They can post, repost to themselves under a different name for as long as they want.
2. Successful movements will naturally attract opposition. So expect pathetic people like shacwatch and police to be out and about stirring up as much as they can. What they want is to split a movement with rumours and suspicions. This will only work if we play into it and believe bollocks which is being posted on here.
3. Don't believe everything you read!! Simple! Speak to your friends in person and just be wary of all that is said over the internet. We all know who to trust and not trust by now. Yeah, there are probably infiltrators and grasses in the AR movement. In the past when we have found them, people are told IN PERSON - never by hysterical indy posts with no evidence and no grounding.
Indy Watcher
Keep it offline folks...
24.09.2008 22:41
The comments above don't appear to reflect the reality of feeling within the movement; I never encounter these discussions or divisions over this stuff when I'm talking face to face with other activists, which is one reason that some of the comments have raised my suspicions about those contributing to this discussion.
Judging by the crudeness of some of the lies - about Lynn Sawyer for example - I'd say that the author(s) is probably the same sad person who set up that animal rights watch blog. I seem to recall that in order to write their articles, they'd clearly spent a lot of time trawling Indymedia for news on AR activism, and also wrote in a similarly infantile manner as in a couple of the above postings.
So I wouldn't be surprised if all this isn't just one shit stirrer with a boring job answering phones for GSK or something... My advice to other genuine activists out there is to ignore all the current online debate about grasses and to discuss it in person if necessary. Then we'll see if there's any substance to the allegations.
That's my first and my final say on this issue.
Southern lass
SOCPA
26.09.2008 17:21
To clarify Sean was not sent to prison because he went out at night wrecking things or liberating animals he was sent to prison because he peacefully demonstrated and was made out to be an organiser. The so called evidence was not from an informer. Of course many of these posts implicate that Sean did illegal acts which is handy for any opposition journalist or CPS lawyer so be please be careful when posting comments the last one seems to assume that Sean was doing full on direct action of a naughty nature. Indymedia has been paraded in court before as "evidence", the gutter press are even less discerning. In fact if Sean had been protesting about anything else at all he would not have been arrested let alone sent to prison as is the nature of this disgusting law (well until they widen its powers).
Lynn Sawyer
Sean did nothing illegal!!
26.09.2008 18:08
S x
Sarah
SG
28.09.2008 15:34
Next, someone will be saying that vivisection is here to stay.....hahahhahaa.....
:))
SG