Oxford gets taste of animal rights fury again as builders restart work on lab

For the last two years Oxford University has been attempting to build an 'animal hotel' to house it's laboratory animals used by departments such as Experimental Psychology, Zoology and Pathology. However, campaigners fresh from their success in preventing a primate lab being built by Cambridge University were soon on their case. Speak Camapigns was born and dedicated to focusing the world's attention on the partly built laboratory.

Over 18 months ago the original contractors for the laboratory, Montpellier PLC, pulled out following letters sent to their shareholders purporting to be from the chair of the company and on headed notepaper warning them that animal rights now knew all about who they were, so advised them to sell up. Unsurprisingly, Monpellier's stock crashed 14% the next day, and they fled the scene.

For the next year and a half Oxford University has struggled to find new builders to replace them. Various rumours have been floated, from bringing in the army to pre-fabricated structures brought in from abroad. However, the site remained quiet except for the weekly protest every Thursday afternoon. These protesters, however, indicated they were in for the long haul through the facts that their numbers averaged 15-20 people in whatever the weather conditions.

Last week, emergency texts and emails flew about as news that workmen had been sighted on the building. It was not long before the grim truth the protesters had worried about was confirmed – a new contractor had been found. The animal rights movement reaction was predictable. Over the last week numbers have been steadily increasing, and with it their anger that what they call the 'hellhole of a torture lab' is once more being worked on. They expected it and have used it to inspire them.

Thursday 1st was a quiet demo as the reality kicked in. The next day in an impromptu demo, they had discovered their voice, as 30 to 40 people vented their fury, goaded on by the sight of the workers wearing balaclavas. Over the weekend the word spread, with campaigners pro-active in spreading the message at Sunday's Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre in London, a very popular event among those opposed to animal cruelty.

By the time Tuesday 6th arrived, the groundswell in the anti-vivisection movement became apparent. Approximately 80 campaigners, from as far Manchester to Nottingham to Portsmouth, met up in Broad Street with a multitude of banners, megaphones and other noise making implements and plenty of energy and anger. Naturally, there was the police presence that stalks them wherever they go, but the activists clearly had the upper hand.

The police and university have been relying on an injunction which restricts protests, in particularly creating an exclusion zone around the new laboratory, inside which the only protest allowed is the weekly Thursday demo set out by the High Court. To the activists this was of little hindrance to their purpose of letting the university and the rest of the world know of their resolution to stop Oxford's ignoble history of vivisection.

The collected spirits split into two, and marched noisily through Broad Street and around to the site on South Parks Road, where they took up position on either side of the injunction zone, one outside the Chemistry building, the other dividing itself on the other side to stand outside the Experimental Psychology/Zoology and Pathology buildings, both of which house animals for experiments and whose scientists will be the main users of the new labs. The labs were clearly in view but apparently the workers were not to be seen.

For the next hour and a bit, the protesters gave rousing chants and rants on the megaphones or simply with their own voices. All groups were unmissable, leaving nobody in any doubt of their determination or commitment. The process servers who normally serve the injunctions and employed by Octaga, a company with links to the Special Forces, were out and about but generally kept out of the way, much to the amusement of protesters.

Then the cry went up that workers were on Mansfield Road. This lead to a mad dash around the streets to the third corner of the exclusion zone where the sight of men in balaclavas and ski-masks were putting up hoardings to further block out the sight of the labs in a relatively pointless exercise. Twenty to thirty people let vent their disgust, informing them just what they were helping to build and about the fraudulent nature of vivisection science. It only served to fire them up and the various journalists present were amazed by what they were witnessing or videoing, seemingly unable to get enough footage.

The police from Thames Valley, Hertfordshire and elsewhere were simply taken back by the fury and were very jittery that they were not able to dominate the situation to quell the protester's determination to be heard. One sergeant tried to impose his weight with a pointless direction to move he was baldly told no and then ignored, leaving him to walk off with tail clearly between his legs.

When the workmen finally retreated, with security guards, back inside the compounds, the protesters decided they had put their message across and it was time to move elsewhere. Earlier in the day there had been a leak that a group of vivisectors would be having their Christmas dinner at the Wheatsheaf Inn, down an alleyway off High Street. The message had gone out and activists around the country were encouraged to contact the pub to cancel the dinner. The protesters reassembled in Broad Street and marched through the alleyways of Oxford to High Street.

Just as they got there, the police attempted to block them in, saying their protest at the Wheatsheaf was not allowed. It did not take long for the protesters to realize that a short detour would take them right around the police. They reversed direction and broke into a run, heading down another alleyway that took them onto the High Street. This lead to to the amazing sight of protesters running down High Street with the police in surprised pursuit, but loosing. The street was filled with protesters on both sides happily informing all and sundry about the planned party at the Wheatsheaf, lining up in long lines along both sides of the High Street.

It was the university's worse nightmare – well second, the first being that the activists will discover who the new contractors are, something they've vowed to do – as the protests spilled over into a town centre filled with Christmas shoppers. Half an hour latter, and somewhat too late, four riot vans zoomed, only adding to the impact of the protest against the Wheatsheaf. Belatedly a s.14 order was issued, but the protesters had clearly made their point. The noise was so great that a local law firm complained that they could not hear their switchboard, but they failed to win any sympathy when on having explained what the protest was about, responded with the typical Oxford attitude that they couldn't give a damn about the animals. Not the best way to win friends.

Having had a full and exciting day the protests wrapped up at 4.30pm with all promising to return again. As one participant said, “Oxford University has only had a taster of what we can offer them. Today was great, but they've seen nothing yet. There are people all over the country, indeed all over the world, determined to see this lab stopped.” For others it was like the days of Hillgrove come back.

The campaign against Oxford University promises to be a galvanizing process for the anti-vivisection movement who clearly understand what is at stake. The campaigners are squaring up against the venerable institution and also the government on this issue, and the are quite clear about the fact that they intend to win.

For more information about the campaign against Oxford University see Speak Campaigns' website at www.speakcampaigns.org.uk Future demos are promised as well as the regular Thursday demonstration.