A total of 8 protesters attended the demo before Zippos opening performance on Friday evening. Sadly, every time this circus visits Birmingham, they have hundreds of customers, many times more than any other circus we know!! On the plus side, this means that we can educate more people, and several hundred leaflets were handed out. Many people stopped to talk about the use of animals in circuses, and several groups were turned away!!

Zippos are on an extremely busy section of the A45, where it opens out into 3 lanes in both directions and traffic queues up at traffic lights. Literally 1,000`s of cars pass this spot every hour so 1 or 2 protesters spent the whole demo holding large placards for the traffic to see why we were there. Many people honked their horns in support.

As the time for the start of the performance approached, a woman who had taken a leaflet became stroppy and loud towards protesters. Protesters stood their ground but refused to get into an arguement, apart from telling her to be on her way. The woman then assaulted a female protester who offered no retaliation. At this point a man approached and seperated the 2 women and moved the circus goer towards the circus. This man and 3 other people with him(a woman & 2 men), then identified themselves as undercover police officers!!! Despite having witnessed what went on, they condemned the female protester who had done nothing! They gave her a warning, then became stroppy themselves and proceeded to threaten all protesters with arrest for breach of the peace if we didn`t move out the area immediately!!! The time was now 7.30pm, the performance was starting, so we complied.

One of these officers told a protester that they were there due to a tip off about many protesters turning up to cause trouble!! Another officer said they were `in the area` on other business! The first suspected suicide bomber to be caught, was arrested on Wednesday, just 1 mile down the road from the circus. Could it be that they attended the circus to monitor potential friction between the culturally diverse communities in the area? Or perhaps undercover cops regularly attend AR protests in the West Midlands!! We may never know for sure, but it seemed a remarkable coincidence that they were within feet of an incident that could potentially have been very serious, had the female protester(or others) retaliated!!

Despite this, protesters will not be put off.
WE HAVE A LEGAL RIGHT TO PEACEFUL PROTEST!!
Further demos will take place, including tomorrow(Sunday) evening from 6.30pm. WHY NOT JOIN US?!! Zippos are on Oaklands Recreation Ground, on the A45 at Hay Mills/Yardley.

If you would like to find out more about the suffering of animals in circuses(and what you can do to stop it), see the website of the Captive Animals Protection Society www.captiveanimals.org

WMAA