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Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty

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Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) is an international animal-rights campaign with the stated aim of closing down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory, based in Huntingdon and Occold, England, and New Jersey in the United States.

The SHAC campaign

File:SHAClogo.jpg

Origins

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. The aim of the campaign is to close the company down.

SHAC was started in November 1999 by British animal rights activists Greg Avery and Heather James, his first wife, after video footage shot covertly inside HLS by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was aired on British television. The footage showed HLS staff shouting at, laughing at, shaking, and punching lab animals, as well as appearing to falsify experiments. (video) The staff members were dismissed and prosecuted, and Huntingdon Life Science's Home Office licence to perform animal experiments was temporarily revoked. Footage shot in the U.S. appears to show technicians dissecting a live monkey. (video)

SHAC was launched to force the closure of HLS after PETA itself retreated from its campaign against the company after being threatened with legal action. Because SHAC is a loose affiliation of individuals acting as a leaderless resistance, it cannot be sued.

Avery and James had both been involved in previous successful, high-profile campaigns to close facilities they perceived as abusive to animals — Consort, which bred beagles for animal-testing purposes, and Hillgrove Farm, which bred cats. Avery has said he 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 vandalism 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."

Organization and methods

Template:Animal liberation movement SHAC's modus operandi is direct action, comprising intimidation of HLS, its employees, its employees' families, its business partners, their children's nursery school , their business partners, their insurers, their caterers, and cleaners. Anyone who delivers services to people who do business with HLS — even the owners of pubs employees visit, or the companies which deliver their milk in the morning — is regarded by SHAC as a legitimate target. The aim is to render the laboratory work as difficult and costly as possible.

The SHAC spokespersons are Greg Avery, his second wife, Natasha Avery (nee Dellemagne), and his first wife, Heather James, who allegedly live together rent-free in a cottage provided by a sympathizer. Together, they publish SHAC reports on their website and by mail, and provide press information and interviews. As a result of these activities, the three were jailed for six months in December 2001 for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. . Greg Avery was also jailed for six months in 1998 for affray and for four months in 2000 . He served 14 days for assaulting a policeman in 1998, and previously six months for affray .

The SHAC website and mailing list serve as a platform for supporters. Action reports are published on the website and mailed out to subscribers, and may contain details of potential targets and lists of the companies that have severed links with HLS.

SHAC says it refrains from any action that might physically harm any human or non-human animal, but the destruction of property and the intimidation of anyone who benefits from a relationship with HLS are 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). He also said that the increased legal restrictions on protests against the firm made it unsurprising that there were more activities such as bricks through windows of HLS staff .

SHAC supporters are known to have engaged in harassment; intimidation with death-threat letters and hoax bombs; arson, including the use of fire-bombs; trespass; and vandalism. The Daily Mail cites as examples a SHAC activist sending 500 letters to the neighbours of a company manager who did business with HLS. The letter warned parents to keep their children away from the man because, it alleged, he had raped the letter writer when she was a child. Police subsequently visited every household in the manager's area to tell his neighbours that the allegations were false. A woman in her 60s who worked for a SHAC-related company allegedly had every window in her house smashed twice, both after visits from SHAC supporters during the night, and found an effigy hung outside her home, which read "R.I.P. Mary, Animal Abusing Bitch".

SHAC say they do not condone unlawful activities and publish names and addresses only so that people can protest peacefully and within the law. However, according to testimony to the House of Commons on March 19, 2003, an internal SHAC document appears to amount to a training manual in harassment. Alleged quotes include:

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

Despite SHAC's stated policy of engaging in only non-violent direct action, Brian Cass, the managing director of HLS, sustained potentially serious head injuries when he was attacked outside his home in February 2001 by three men armed with pickaxe handles and CS gas. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Hobbs of Cambridgeshire police told reporters: "It's only by sheer luck that we are not beginning a murder inquiry." A neighbor who tried to help Cass was sprayed with CS gas. Dave Blenkinsop, who had also engaged in actions using the name of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), 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 — believed to be ammonia — which left him temporarily blinded.

Because SHAC operates as a leaderless resistance, the attacks cannot be formally attributed to the campaign.

Alleged ties to ALF

The SHAC spokespersons deny any link between their campaign and attacks carried out by activists using the name of the ALF. However, the SHAC website features ALF news, and Kevin Jonas, the president of SHAC USA, who took charge of SHAC UK while the Averys and James were jailed for six months in 2002, has declared his "unequivocal support" for the ALF. Robin Webb, spokesman for the ALF in the UK, has attended and addressed 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 Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), told The Observer in August 2004. The CCF is a pressure group formed by fast-food chains and pharmaceutical companies to combat animal-rights and other forms of activism. The FBI suspects that British SHAC activists are being bankrolled by groups and individuals in the U.S.

As with SHAC, 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 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 and its customers

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

The campaign has had a major 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, Rover cars, and the London Borough of Camden. The Labour Party sold its 75,000 shares in January 2000.

The list was passed to the Sunday Telegraph, which published it on 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 NYSE

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 OTC Bulletin Board as "LSRI" (Life Sciences Research). 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.

Firebombing

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."

Carr Securities withdraws

Carr Securities announced it had withdrawn from making a market in HLS shares after a New York yacht club was covered in red paint by the U.S. branch of the ALF, because members of the club worked for Carr Securities, which traded in HLS shares.

The ALF announced on its bulletin board: "Let this be a message to any other company who chooses to court HLS in their ... entrance into the NYSE. If you trade in LSR shares, make a market, process orders, or purchase shares you can expect far worse treatment. The message is simple, don't touch HLS!"

NYSE listing postponed

On September 7, 2005, the New York stock exchange asked Life Sciences Research, the name HLS is trading under in the U.S., to delay its listing. The company has been listed on the junior OTC bulletin board since its move out of the UK. The NYSE offered no reason for the delay.

GlaxoSmithKline targeted

A posting on the website Bite Back on September 7, 2005 said that the ALF had carried out an attack on the home of Paul Blackburn, the corporate controller of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in Buckinghamshire, because GSK is a customer of Huntingdon Life Sciences. The activists admitted to detonating a device containing two litres of fuel and four pounds of explosives on the doorstep of Blackburn's home, causing minor damage.

Criticism of SHAC

SHAC has been cricitized for condoning or encouraging violence. Activists may use the information published by SHAC, which includes names and details of people and organization deemed to be targets, to cause criminal damage; for example, those associated with HLS often have their cars damaged by paint-stripper.

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

SHAC's critics argue the following:

  • 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 (London Evening Standard, March 31, 2003).
  • HLS says it abides by British animal welfare laws. 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 at street stands in the UK with leaflets and collection cans. As SHAC is not a registered charity, donors cannot be sure that the funds raised are used for SHAC activities.
  • 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. If the picture choices at the stands are not exactly in this proportion, critics say, the SHAC supporters are misrepresenting animal experimentation and are committing a fallacious appeal to emotion.

Legal action against SHAC

Several 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 a 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 cannot prevent its supporters from taking action against HLS.

Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, lawyer for HLS, has explored another legal avenue to hold SHAC financially accountable. HLS sought £205,000 in damages 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:

  • describes the benefits of medical research which it argues would not be possible without animal studies;
  • estimates the commercial value of the bio-medical industry in the UK;
  • asserts government concern for the welfare of animals;
  • asserts that all steps to replace the use of animals have been and will continue to be taken;
  • defines 'animal-rights extremists' as those engaged in harassment and intimidation, not seeking civil discourse;
  • reiterates 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;
  • reviews the existing laws used to prosecute animal-rights extremists;
  • proposes new legislation and amendments to existing legislation.

See also

References

Further reading

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