Misplaced Pages

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SlimVirgin (talk | contribs) at 09:35, 4 September 2005 (→Criticism of SHAC: added template). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 09:35, 4 September 2005 by SlimVirgin (talk | contribs) (→Criticism of SHAC: added template)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
File:HLSmonkey02.jpg
A monkey inside Huntingdon Life Sciences in the United States

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) is an international animal-rights campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory, which is based in Huntingdon and Occold, England, and New Jersey in the United States. HLS tests products like household cleaners, drugs, pesticides, food colorings, and sweeteners on around 70,000 animals every year, including rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, birds, rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, and primates. The company has also been involved in xenotransplantation experiments on wild baboons from Kenya, according to internal documents leaked to Uncaged Campaigns and The Observer.

SHAC was started by British animal rights activists Greg Avery and his first wife Heather James in November 1999, after video footage shot covertly inside HLS by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was aired on British television. The undercover footage showed HLS staff shouting, shaking, laughing at, and punching the animals, as well as falsifying experiments. (mpg) The individuals were dismissed and prosecuted, and Huntingdon Life Science's Home Office licence to perform animal experiments was temporarily revoked. Since then, other investigations and leaked documents have revealed further abuse and incompetence, such as staff turning up for work drunk, or taking drugs. Footage shot in the U.S. appears to show staff dissecting a live monkey. (Quicktime)

Avery and James had both been involved in previous successful campaigns to close facilities they perceived as abusive to animals, much to the dismay of the British government. SHAC was launched to force the closure of HLS after PETA itself was forced to retreat from its campaign against the company following the threat of legal action. Because SHAC is not registered as an organization, but is a loose affiliation of individuals acting as a leaderless resistance, it cannot be sued.

Avery has said SHAC is in no doubt that the campaign will force the closure of HLS. He told BBC Radio 4: "You don't pick a company unless you can close it down because otherwise you just make those companies stronger. So when they are chosen — they are finished." In pursuit of this aim, SHAC has been criticized for its apparent willingness to condone violence, intimidation, and attacks on property. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors U.S. domestic extremism, has described SHAC’s modus operandi as "frankly terroristic tactics similar to those of anti-abortion extremists." On May 26, 2005, the Animal Liberation Front issued a warning that appeared to increase the threat of violent action against those who do business with HLS: "A new era has dawned for those who fund the abusers and raise funds for them to murder animals with. You too are on the hit list: you have been warned. If you support or raise funds for any company connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire."

The SHAC campaign

File:SHAClogo.jpg

Organization

SHAC activities are based on direct action, protests and demonstrations against HLS, its employees, its employees' families, and its business partners. By targeting clients, employees, suppliers, insurers, and even the caterers and cleaners of the laboratory, they aim to scare away HLS's clientele and render the laboratory work as difficult and costly as possible.

The SHAC spokespersons are Greg Avery and his wife, Natasha Avery. Together with his first wife, Heather James, they are responsible for publishing SHAC reports via mail and on their website, and providing press information and interviews. They were jailed for six months in December 2001 for criminal incitement.

The SHAC website and mailing list serves as a platform for supporters. Action reports are published on the website and mailed out to subscribers. Possible targets of the campaign and the companies that have severed their links with HLS are also published.

SHAC is not a closed organization, but an assembly of individuals and independent groups with shared goals and principles, who are regarded by SHAC as responsible for their own actions. SHAC says it refrains from any action that might physically harm human or non-human animals. However, destruction of property and the intimidation of any person benefiting from a relationship with HLS is deemed acceptable. According to Greg Avery, "hey've made their beds and now it's time to lie in them, and they're all whining." (pdf)

File:HLSCass.jpg
Brian Cass, managing director of HLS, was attacked by three men with pickaxe handles in February 2001.

Direct action by SHAC supporters has included violence, harassment, intimidation with death-threat letters and hoax bombs, arson, trespass, vandalism, and destruction of property.

Despite SHAC's stated policy of non-violent direct action, Brian Cass, the managing director of HLS, was attacked outside his home in February 2001 by three men armed with pickaxe handles and CS gas. A neighbor who tried to intervene was sprayed with CS gas. Dave Blenkinsop, an ALF activist, was jailed for three years for the attack. A few months later, HLS marketing director Andrew Gay was attacked on his doorstep with a chemical spray to his eyes, leaving him temporarily blinded.

As with other forms of animal-rights activism in which individuals do not act as members of a formal organization, the attack cannot be formally attributed to SHAC. Holding SHAC responsible for establishing a "community of sympathy" for such crimes would necessitate wide-ranging constraints on freedom of speech.

Ties to Animal Liberation Front

The SHAC spokespersons disclaim any connection between their campaign and attacks carried out by activists using the name Animal Liberation Front (ALF). However, the SHAC website features ALF news, and Kevin Jonas, the president of SHAC USA, who took charge of SHAC UK while Greg Avery was jailed for six months in 2002, has declared his "unequivocal support for the Animal Liberation Front." Robin Webb, spokesman for the ALF in the UK, regularly attends and addresses SHAC conferences in the U.S.

File:ALFRobinWebbSHAC.jpg
Robin Webb, ALF UK press officer, addresses a meeting of SHAC.

"Dangerous activists are moving freely between these groups, money is changing hands and the threat is escalating," David Martosko, spokesman for the Centre for Consumer Freedom (CCF), told The Observer in August 2004. The CCF is a new pressure group formed by fast-food chains and pharmaceutical companies to combat animal-rights activism. The FBI suspects that British SHAC activists are being bankrolled by groups and individuals in the U.S.

Activists possibly associated with SHAC have committed crimes that were claimed on behalf of the ALF. Dave Blenkinsop was jailed for the attack on HLS managing director Brian Cass and also for bombing poultry vans, the latter claimed on behalf of the ALF. There is no firm indication that Blenkinsop was involved with SHAC, because the open nature of the organization makes it impossible to say with certainty who is involved and which actions may properly be attributed to it.

Similarly, the ALF is not a closed organization, but is simply a name used by activists when they engage in covert, non-violent, direct action that furthers the cause of animal liberation. Any analysis of how much overlap exists between SHAC and ALF actions is therefore speculative, although the May 26, 2005 warning by the ALF to HLS supporters, posted on the ALF website, leaves little doubt that there is a strong relationship between the activists: "If you support or raise funds for any company connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire."

Effects of campaign on HLS

File:SHACdemo3.jpg
A SHAC demonstration in Cambridge, England in March 2004

When the SHAC campaign started in 1999, Greg Avery vowed to close HLS "within three years". While this has not happened, SHAC's efforts have had an impact on HLS's business deals, share price, and profits. The SHAC website maintains a list of companies, 166 of them as of June 2005, that have severed business ties with HLS. The British Department of Trade and Industry had to insure HLS because all previous insurers had abandoned them after being targeted by SHAC.

Shareholders published

In 2000, SHAC obtained a list of HLS shareholders. The list included the names of beneficial owners: anonymous individuals and companies who bought shares using the name of a third party. Shareholders included the pension funds of the Labour Party (its 75,000 shares were sold in January 2000), Rover cars, and the London Borough of Camden.

The list was leaked to the press (Sunday Telegraph, December 3, 2000) and several beneficial owners disposed of their shares. Two weeks later, an equity stake of 32 million shares was placed on the London Stock Exchange for one pence each. HLS quotes crashed immediately. The Royal Bank of Scotland closed HLS's bank account and the British government arranged for the state-owned Bank of England to give them an account. The British Banking Association said "Huntingdon Life Sciences are in a nightmare situation," (Huntingdon Life Sciences, financial report 2002). (pdf)

Dropped from NY stock exchange

On December 21, 2000, HLS was dropped from the New York Stock Exchange because of its share collapse: its market capitalization had fallen below NYSE limits and the NYSE did not accept HLS's revised business plan. On March 29, 2001, HLS lost both of its market makers and its place on the main platform of the London Stock Exchange.

Move to the U.S.

Because of SHAC's use of public records to send malicious threats to HLS investors, HLS moved its financial centre to the United States and incorporated in Maryland as Life Sciences Research, Inc., in order to take advantage of stricter U.S. securities laws, which allow greater anonymity of shareholders. HLS currently trades on the NASDAQ's OTC Bulletin Board as "LSRI". Maryland allows shareholders with less than 5% holdings to remain anonymous. Partly because of this, the British government has changed the law so that smaller investors in a company are not publicly listed.

Saved from banktruptcy

HLS was saved from bankruptcy when its largest shareholder, American investment bank Stephens, Inc, gave the company a $15-million loan. SHAC supporters reacted by targeting Stephens, Inc. HLS's position remains unstable, as is shown by their $87.5-million debt and by documents leaked to SHAC.

In June 2005, a Vancouver-based brokerage announced that it had dropped a client, Phytopharm PLC, in response to the May 2005 ALF firebombing of a car belonging to Canaccord executive Michael Kendall. The ALF stated on its website that activists placed an "incendiary device" under the car, which was in Kendall's garage at home when it caught fire during the night. Kendall and his family went into hiding.

Phytopharm was targeted, as were those doing business with it, because it had business links with HLS. The ALF warned Phytopharm to stay away from HLS or "see your share price crash and your supporters property go up in flames."

Criticism of SHAC

Violence

Template:Animal liberation movement A criticism of SHAC is that their claim to be non-violent is open to challenge. Activists may use the information published by SHAC for bomb hoaxes or to cause criminal damage — those associated with HLS often have their cars damaged by paint-stripper, for example.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), widely known for monitoring U.S. domestic extremism and reporting on the activities of hate groups, included SHAC in its fall 2002 Intelligence Report. In an article entitled "From Push to Shove," the SPLC described SHAC’s modus operandi as "frankly terroristic tactics similar to those of anti-abortion extremists."

SHAC say they do not condone illegal activities and only publish names and addresses so that people can protest peacefully and legally. However, according to testimony to the British parliament on March 19, 2003, an internal SHAC document amounts to training for illegal harassment campaigns. Alleged quotes included:

A simple tactic has been adopted recently. Pick your target. Throw a couple of rape alarms in their roof guttering or thick hedgerow, and leg it ... Being kept awake at night hardly puts you in a good mood at work or with your family ... Another idea is to set off extra loud fireworks from a safe distance that will wake up the HLS scum and everybody else for miles around ... From the comfort of your own home, you can swamp all these bastards with send no money offers. They cause huge inconvenience and can give them a bad credit rating. Order them taxis, pizzas, curries, etc, the possibilities are endless. Above all, stay free and safe, and don't get caught. The more preparation you do the better ... Think, think, think. Don't lick stamps, use gloves when pasting stuff ... No idle talk in pubs. Burn your shoes and clothes after your night of action.

Kevin Jonas, the leader of of SHAC-USA told the Southern Poverty Law Group's Intelligence Report: "There's a very famous quote by John F. Kennedy. If you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable."

Other criticism

SHAC adversaries claim that the campaign's tactics are not working. HLS managing director Brian Cass says that, since the formation of SHAC in 1999, HLS has seen the value of orders placed with it double to just under £100 million worth of custom (London Evening Standard, March 31, 2003).

HLS says it abides by British animal welfare laws. Critics of SHAC argue that these laws are already among the world's strictest laws on animal use in medical testing; closing down HLS would mean displacing animal testing to smaller laboratories in the UK, they say, or moving the testing to a country with less strict laws on animal testing.

SHAC's efforts are susceptible to the problems common to vigilantism, namely that an entirely unconnected person may be targeted or affected. SHAC relies on leaked information regarding HLS's current clients and staff members, which means the details may not be timely or accurate. The company says that SHAC has occasionally harassed staff who had already left HLS.

SHAC supporters have been seen soliciting donations to their cause at street stands in the UK with leaflets and collection cans. As SHAC is not a registered charity, it is obvious then that donors cannot be sure that the funds raised are used for SHAC activities.

SHAC critics claim that the way the campaign decorates its stands gives a misleading impression. Rodents make up 84% of animals used for testing in the UK, cats and dogs make up 0.3%, monkeys 0.1%. (though these general cross-country percentages do not indicate how many of each species is used for testing by HLS). SHAC's critics say that if the picture choices at the stands are not exactly in this proportion, the SHAC supporters are misrepresenting animal experimentation and are committing a fallacious appeal to emotion.

Legal action against SHAC

Many companies targeted by SHAC have obtained High Court injunctions against SHAC, under the Protection From Harassment Act. These include HLS itself, Chiron UK, Phytopharm, Daiichi UK, Asahi Glass, Eisai, Yamanouchi Pharma, Sankyo Pharma, and BOC. The injunctions compel SHAC to print the injunction on their website, so that SHAC's action targets are juxtaposed with a legal notification that there is a 50-yard exclusion zone around the homes of employees and places of business. Protest outside HLS itself may only occur one day a week with police presence.

These injunctions are not permanent. HLS tried but failed to obtain a permanent injunction against SHAC, which represented itself, on June 26, 2004. SHAC's argument against the enforceability of such injunctions was that, despite having hundreds of supporters, a website, mailing address, telephone information hotline, mailing list and bank account, it does not exist as a corporate or charitable body, and therefore its supporters cannot be legally prevented from taking action against HLS.

Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, lawyer for HLS, has explored a novel legal avenue to hold SHAC financially accountable. HLS sought £205,000 reparation from the owner of a property SHAC used as a mailing address, for the costs incurred in its harassment suit, or the forfeit of the property in lieu.

British government response

On July 30 2004, the British government released a paper called "Animal Welfare - Human Rights: protecting people from animal rights extremists." The paper specifically mentioned HLS, though not SHAC. It stated:

Animal rights extremists are highly organized and fully prepared to resort to a wide range of illegal tactics to intimidate and harass people engaged in lawful activity. This goes far beyond the legitimate boundaries of peaceful protest and freedom of expression. To provide an effective response, our law enforcement and criminal justice system needs to be every bit as concerted and determined in response. The Government is therefore following a clear strategy to crack down on this activity. We shall systematically enforce the law, with the police and criminal justice system working together to target extremism and extremists. We shall ensure that campaigns of intimidation and violence for extremist ends are presented to the courts as aggravating factors when sentencing those convicted of existing offences. (pdf)

The paper outlined:

  • what it says are the benefits of medical research which, it states, would not be possible without animal studies;
  • the alleged commercial value of the bio-medical industry in the UK;
  • that the government is concerned for the welfare of animals and that all steps to replace the use of animals have and will continue to be taken;
  • that animal-rights extremists are interested in harassment and intimidation, not in changing the law or seeking civil discourse;
  • that the government listens to law-abiding animal-rights and welfare groups and enacts legislation where appropriate — for example, RSPCA officers now have the power to investigate animal abuse claims on the spot, and the LD50 test was permanently banned in the UK after peaceful, lawful lobbying by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection;
  • the existing laws used to prosecute animal-rights activists;
  • new laws, and the proposed amendments to existing legislation.

Parallel anti-terror developments

On July 19, 2005, a further development in Britain's already stringent anti-terror laws was proposed by Home Secretary Charles Clarke in response to the 7_July_2005_London_bombings. The new law, with cross party support, would establish the crimes of "acts preparatory to terrorism" and "indirect incitement to terrorism". This latter, in particular, seems likely to be available to pursue SHAC if cases such as the Brian Cass assault occur once the law comes into effect.

See also

References

Further reading

Unrelated acronym

Categories: