Meet 12 Noon, Balliol College, Broad St, Oxford

The SPEAK Campaign is calling for the immediate release by Oxford University of two rhesus macaque monkeys. After fifteen years of confinement and experimentation these individuals have known no life outside the walls of a University lab.

The two rhesus macaque monkeys in question have had surgery to remove part of their brains ten years previously when they were five years old. The monkeys were last known to be involved in an experiment funded by the Medical Research Council and conducted at Oxford University and according to research data was exploring reaction to 'visual stimulus'. These two individuals have been given artificially produced brain damage by scientists trying to mimic human brain damage and then set a battery of tests to study their reaction times.

SPEAK campaigns will be holding a demonstration in Oxford on Saturday 15th May to call for the release of two rhesus macaque monkeys who have spent their entire lives inside the walls of vivisection labs. Oxford University is engaged in building a new centre of animal abuse in which even more animals will suffer and die on the alter of scientific fraud, academic arrogance and profit driven blindness.

The new animal torture lab in the early stages of construction on South Parks Rd in Oxford will have a covered bridgeway connecting it to the "notorious" dept of Experimental Psychology. On the upper floors of this building is Level F, the scene of some of the most horrific animal experiments ever carried out in this country. This modern day torture is protected by locked doors and state of the art security hidden from the eyes of the outside world. The two rhesus macaque monkeys imprisoned here should be released at once and be allowed to live out the rest of their lives in an enviroment that will allow them to experience the stimulation denied to them as victims of a flawed scientific practice.

We urge you to come to Oxford on Saturday 15th May and demand the release of the "OXFORD TWO" and SPEAK out against the building of a new animal abuse centre in Oxford. The animal rights movement has defeated Cambridge University and the Government over their plans to build Europe's largest primate lab, together we can halt this expansion of animal terror and strike a blow for animal liberation.

Email:  info@speakcampaigns.org.uk
Website: www.speakcampaigns.org.uk

I was just wondering why people are so bloody active on this issue when:

our government has illegally occupied a three countries in 5 years, our army is torturing and raping, the environment is going into melt down, Aids is killing millions every year in Sub Saharan Africa and elsewhere, extreme ammounts of debt is pushing a huge proportion the population of this planet under the poverty line and into starvation, people don't even have access to clean water, Corporations raping third world countries, huge numbers of species of animals on the brink of extinction, rant rant rant

Don't get me wrong I'm not in favour of torturing and testing on animals (quite the opposite) but I just can't help thinking you've got your priorities wrong!

Animals cannot speak nor fight back against the vicious injustices dealt out to them. We can speak and fight on their behalf.

They have suffered to long. They should never have had to suffer at all at the hands of humans.

Animal cruelty leads way to human cruelty. If we can stop the barbaric exploitation of animals, we may stand a chance in stoppoing the barbaric exploitation of people.


In Struggle,

there are many things wrong in the world today which, if enough people stood up
and said something about it then some people in power would listen. however
many of us sit down and accept it with a wimper and a moan and dont get up and
speak their mind. i understand what the feelings are of the above comments and
do my own shouting for these issues! also i wish to vent my anger at the torture
and cruelty that is happening under my nose at the oxford university. if i can do
something to show people what is going on, and even prevent it then i will do
all that i can. i support the speak campaign to the full and till the end.
for the animals all over the world. if we dont, who will??? dick oxarg

I agree that human torture and abuse is awful and should be stopped. However, even if all the humans on Earth were killed, that wouldn't equal the amount of animals killed each year in the name of the human race.

If people prioritise correctly, then animals will always be first.

As we are more intelligent (most of us anyway) than the majority of non-human animals, we should realise that due to this humans are not more important than non-humans. We should not be assuming that just because we can we should kill animals and torture them for our own 'advancement' (if that's what people call it).

It would, of course, help the cause if people quit breaking stuff at unrelated bits of the University. All it does is antagonise students and staff who might otherwise be sympathetic. Picketing the School of Geography, for instance, is not likely to do a lot of good and breaking a window at Mansfield is only going to make everyone think you all are out there to break stuff for anarchistic giggles.

While the bit above labels the University's behaviour 'paranoia,' the violent juvenile behaviour demonstrated by a small minority of those involved in this campaign, more often than not directed at people and places who have no involvement nor influence in the whole affair, only serves to piss off the general University populace (who would otherwise be apathetic or anti-testing). Scaring the sh*t out of some poor little old Byzantine history tutor does no one any good.

I've been involved in animal rights actions in the past, but I frankly have no sympathy for SPEAK because they are unable to coherently identify what is a meaningful target and what they're doing just for the juvenile thrill of their so-called 'fighting the system' disguised as they pretend to be living out Anarchist theory as they run amok breaking stuff and getting a rush out of harassing innocent, uninvolved people.