Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Adventures in Oxford – “We put acid on monkey penises”

Rick Stein | 08.12.2004 16:05 | Animal Liberation | Repression | Oxford

Last week the police got themselves carried away by the injunction thinking that they could trample all over protestor rights at the behest of Oxford University, by moving people on when ever they tried to demonstrate against the animal labs being built. Not to be so easily dissuaded a group of us went back on Thursday and continued the mission to bring the horrific labs to the attention of the people of Oxford.

First stop was on St Giles, where we stood with a big banner directing people to www.curedisease.com so they could find out the real facts behind vivisection, and a megaphone to inform everyone that we were there and why we were protesting. There was the much interest from people who had heard of the campaign but wanted to learn more.

Apparently this exercise of freedom of speech was too much for the police who sent down a big bunch of officers to supervise us. Despite them all reading the injunction, they couldn’t find anything that was in breach of it. So they sent for the top man in charge of policing the City of Oxford to impose his regulations saying that we were upsetting the people in a nearby library, blah, blah and that we had to move on.

We told them that it was the university’s fault for taking out an injunction so we cannot stand down at the labs were we wanted to be anyway, and that is who the library should complain to.

Anyway, we were not going to be put off that easily. So having had a good one and half hours there, we trooped off to South Park Road, and stood just outside the injunction zone – much to the disbelief of the police and other people working there, many of whom were shocked that we could not go the 30 meters further along to actually stand across from the labs.

Instead we stood with our banner and placards opposite the chemistry building, where a number of the students seem to think the pictures of mutilated animals similar to those which will suffer in experiments to be carried out in the laboratory next do to them. Some of these pinnacles of civilisation and learning stuck a crude sign on their window saying “We put acid on monkey penises” – how charming! They were forced to take it down and given section 5 warnings by the police and told that the university would also be receiving a complaint.

So, all in all, an excellent day out in Oxford, showing them that their injunctions was not going to stifle our rights to protest, and with some excellent outreach achieved. We must say a big well done to those people inside of the university who are opposing the building of the lab in the face of so much shameful uncritical thinking from their fellow students.

We will be back on a regular basis (and not just on the regular Thursday demos) so if you are interested in becoming involved in the campaign contact Speak Campaigns at  info@speakcampaigns.org.uk or see www.speakcampaigns.org.uk.

Why not check out the leak of documents on just what is going on in Oxford animal labs at  http://www.speakcampaigns.org.uk/news/20041207leak.php

Let the Chemistry Research Laboratories know that you do not think making jokes about pouring acid on monkey penises is a laughing matter and request that people who post these sort of notices only bring the university into further disrepute - politely of course! (Note, this is not a protest against the animal labs, but a complaint against the behaviour of some students).

Department of Chemistry, c/o Central Chemistry,
South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QH
Tel. 01865 275906
Fax 01865 275905

Prof W Graham Richards - head of department
Email:  graham.richards@chem.ox.ac.uk - Tel: 01865 275 908

Rick Stein

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All 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
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
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.

Global IMC Network


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