Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

National March & Rally @ Novartis UK HQ

SHAC | 28.04.2008 18:10 | SHAC | Animal Liberation | South Coast | World

400 campaigners from across the UK gathered at Horsham Park for a National march and demo at Novartis UK HQ, where experiments on primates, guinea-pigs and other animals are tortured for profit.

Puppy Killers - Close Down HLS!
Puppy Killers - Close Down HLS!

Marching through the city
Marching through the city

Police line
Police line

Speeches
Speeches

Lynn Sawyer
Lynn Sawyer

Novartis & HLS are to blame
Novartis & HLS are to blame

as well as Staples (top supplier)
as well as Staples (top supplier)




Novartis is also one of HLS's largest customers, most notorious for the Xenotransplantation scandal back in 2000. The research was conducted by a biotechnology company, Imutran Ltd, which was a subsidiary of the multinational drug firm Novartis Pharma AG, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. The experiments took place at the controversial Huntingdon Life Sciences laboratories. See:  http://www.shac.net/HLS/exposed/xeno.html and  http://www.xenodiaries.org/summary.htm for more information.

It was a day to demonstrate our anger, our sorrow and our determination to one of the main customers of HLS, to the people of Horsham and to the world. There were many information stalls from national campaigns and groups, and Veggies were there to fuel our anger and determination with lots of vegan food!

Amanda Richards from SPEAK kicked off the speeches, reminding everyone of why we were in Horsham and talked about the campaign against HLS since the Channel 4 documentary ‘It’s a dogs life’ in 1997. Which showed HLS workers punching beagle puppies in the face and of all the many exposes since than.

Next up was Lynn Sawyer, a mid wife, who during a protest against HLS in 2000 was shook off a 20 foot tripod by an off duty policeman. Lynn broke her leg in 4 places and had to have plastic surgery to her face. The policeman lighty due to intimidation of witnesses! But Lynn carried on campaigning against HLS. This shows you the determination of campaigners to close HLS down. She talked about HLS and the misuse of the Harassment Act, which was meant to protect people from Stalkers. But instead has been used by HLS and other animal testing companies to stifle legal protest and free speech.

Debbie Vincent then spoke about Novartis and reinforced the message that we must keep fighting for the animals inside HLS, and inside Novartis. She talked about the global movement against HLS all over the world, with over 700 protests in 30 countries last year!

The march around Horsham began and no one in Horsham town centre was left unaware of our presence of why we where there! To inform them about the primate research going on in their town, right on their door step!

There was overwhelming support from the local people of Horsham and many leaflets were given out during the march, in fact as the march weaved its way through the town several local residents joined the march up to Novartis and pledged their support! The noise and the visual presence was awesome, with banners as far as the eye could see, trailing all the way back through the town. Many locals were surprised to hear that primate research happened in their town, a fact that Novartis have tried to hide. In fact, Novartis tried to get the march stopped in the High Court!

After leaving the town centre we carried on marching up to Novartis itself on Wimblehurst Road and Parsonage Road. As people gathered outside Novartis, a young campaigner Lia gave a rousing speech, urging everyone to take up the fight against Novartis and HLS, Nationally and locally and to not let up until we win. She also talked about the Xenotransplantation scandal where pigs’ hearts were stitched onto wild caught bamboons which caused immeasurable suffering to them. These experiments were carried out at HLS, where they broke good lab practice 520 times and were never prosecuted! As the sun shone down on the righteous, we vented our grief, our anger and outrage at Novartis. The air was rent with noise; we filled the afternoon air outside Novartis with the sound of megaphones, sirens, voices, whistles and drums.

Near the end of the demo, we then had a minutes silence for the animals inside Novartis and HLS, as this protest was for them. We then marched back to Horsham Park where we gathered before finishing.

This protest was amazing, for those who came, thank you on behalf of every one of the 70,000 animals waiting to die inside HLS. To the many locals of Horsham for their support and promises of helping campaign against Novartis in Horsham, were regular protests take place. This is the start of new stage against our fight against Novartis and HLS, with many campaigners vowing to re-double their efforts to close these hell holes down. It was a very inspiring day!

Lia’s speech outside Novartis:  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5edZRByKMNw

More videos of the day to come...

SHAC
- e-mail: info@shac.net
- Homepage: http://shac.net

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

More videos..

28.04.2008 19:59

I hope there are a few good ones of the rage and anger against the animal abusers inside Novartis and the police who are defending the state's internment of Greg, Natasha & Heather.

Antispe


Why don't you...

28.04.2008 22:49

propose a feature?

we could do with a new one :)

DiY


Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech