SHAC Press Release: Shareholders Drop, Defendants Plead Guilty

Some of you may by now have heard that 3 of the defendants in the SHAC UK conspiracy trial have pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to blackmail at Winchester Crown Court. Two of the campaigners, Gregg and Natasha Avery  http://myspace.com/supportukprisoners were already in prison awaiting trial, the other, Dan Amos  http://myspace.com/supportdan, has now also been remanded.

Please write letters of support to Dan and all the prisoners. As soon as Dan's number and address is confirmed it will be posted on the VPSG website  http://vpsg.org. Show your solidarity and support at this, one of many injustices we fight to stop. Get angry, get active.

It is important to remember that this is just three of the thousands of SHAC activists and anti-vivisectionists in many countries around the world, and the campaign continues against HLS and against vivisection.

To illustrate the point, today we received cofirming news that yet another institutional shareholder, Acadian Asset Management (Old Mutual) have sold their shares. This is the third company to dump HLS shares in less than a month. This leaves the largest institutional shareholder, Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd hold 279,842 shares in HLS (LSR), who are part of Barclays Bank. Their website is  http://barclaysglobal.com (There will be an email alert about them very soon).

To put this in perspective, this means that less than 5% of HLS shares are currently being traded. Meanwhile HLS are still around $80million in debt, they don't own their own buildings or land, and are being propped up by the UK gove rnment who are continuing to provide banking and insurance facilities for a US registered company. This is an absurd position unprecedented in the history of commerce or protest groups, hundreds of millions of taxpayers money is being used to keep HLS afloat, while even more taxpayers money is used by the same government to persecute those who try to stop the suffering of both human and non-human animals.

We are all part of SHAC and we will all continue the fight against one of the most disgusting and exposed companies in the world.

Nobody said it was going to be easy, we must now re-double our anger and commitment. Don't forget that HLS have to pay back one of their loans of $50 million in a few years and we must not let HLS out of our grasp. Remember, the only reason HLS is still here is because of our corrupt government and it cancome as no surprise, as this is the same government that are partners in an illegal war. They will not let ethical considerations cloud their goal of making money, at any cost. But their unethical policies will cost them dearly in the long run, the fight goes on.