An Introduction: Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC)

Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) are in the business of poisoning healthy animals to death. They are a contract testing operation that tests products for others. They have three sites two in the UK and one in the US. Five hundred animals are put to death every day by HLS, killing tens of thousands of horses, cats, dogs, primates, rabbits, hamsters, rats, mice and fish amongst others each year.

SHAC was set with the sole aim of closing HLS down. The campaign was set up at the end of 1999 by a group of activists who had successfully closed down Consort kennels and Hillgrove cat farm. Both campaigns ended with the businesses closing down and hundreds of animals being safely rehomed instead of tortured in labs.

Shareholders, stockbrokers, market makers, suppliers and clients have all dumped HLS, including the world’s largest companies; all four main high street banks in the UK, the world’s largest financial institution, the world’s second largest bank and the world’s largest insurance broker. Huntingdon are $72 million dollars in debt with NO commercial bank and insurance company anywhere in the world prepared to deal with them.

HLS’ key weakness is their finances and by throwing the spotlight on those funding their abuse campaigners across the globe have managed to bring HLS to the brink of financial collapse. Throughout the campaign activists have made financial history as one by one major corporations have yielded to protester power and severed their links with the failing company.

Campaigners use evidence obtained in seven undercover investigations at their different laboratories in the UK and USA where HLS workers have been caught on film punching puppies in the face, simulating sex with animals in their care, cutting open primates while they are still alive and falsifying experiments to get products on the market. HLS workers have even been caught drunk at work and dealing drugs at the labs.

Huntingdon Life Sciences have a criminal record from a British court of law for breaking the Companies’ Act. They are the only UK laboratory to ever have their licence revoked by the government.

An Introduction: Animal Rights Militia (ARM)

The Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action against people or entities that profit from animal suffering. Unlike other leaderless resistance in the movement, they don't have any guidelines against physically harming human beings.

ARM activists believe "the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) does not go far enough...", regarding the ALF's guidelines of strictly non-violent resistance. In contrast, the ARM carrys out political violence and/or property destruction to further the animal liberation movement. This includes letter bombs, contaminations, death threats, hoaxes and destroying cars and shops using arson.

The ARM, like the ALF, is not a group, but a banner for autonomous, covert cells to use. The name has most often been used in the UK, Isle of Wight, and USA, with cells active in over a dozen countries. The name was first known when signed letter bombs were sent to 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament in London, harming Margaret Thatcher's colleague in 1982.

Following the actions in the early 1980s, the ARM claimed a series of arsons, hoax bombs and threats after reappearing in the 1990s, notably in the Isle of Wight, Cambridge, North Yorkshire and Oxford. The damage caused by fires averaged £2 million in each location.

The ARM continues to report actions in the 21st century, predominantly in European countries, as well as North America and Australia. The ARM now send anonymous communiques to Bite Back Magazine, a website promoting the animal liberation struggle and its prisoners.