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Newchurch victory

anon | 23.08.2005 10:46 | Birmingham

strategic retreat?

just announced

GUINEA PIG FARM TO CLOSE AFTER HATE CAMPAIGN

By Alex Thompson, PA

A farm is to cease breeding guinea pigs for medical research following a long-running campaign of intimidation by animal rights activists, a spokeswoman for the family-run business said today.
David Hall and Partners said it would shut down its guinea pig breeding operations at Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire, at the end of the year.
The Hall family, which has been subjected to a six-year hate campaign by animal rights extremists, said they hoped the decision would prompt grave robbers to return the body of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond, whose remains were stolen from a churchyard in nearby Yoxall.
In a statement released through a spokeswoman, who declined to be named, the Hall family said: "David Hall and Partners' involvement in breeding guinea pigs for biomedical research will cease at the end of 2005.
"The business, which has operated for over three decades, will undergo a phased closure until then to ensure the welfare of animals involved.
"The business has continued during a sustained protest from animal rights extremists for six years, which included the desecration of the grave of Gladys Hammond last October.
"We now hope that, as a result of this announcement, those responsible for removing Gladys' body will return her so she can lie once again in her rightful resting place.
"David Hall and Partners are planning a return to traditional farming. They have no plans to be involved in any way in the breeding of animals for medical or scientific research.
"No further comment will be made on the closure of the guinea pig breeding business until it has been finalised at the end of the year."
The body of Gladys Hammond, the mother-in-law of Christopher Hall, who co-owns Darley Oaks Farm with his brother John, was stolen from a grave at St Peter's church last October.
It followed a sustained campaign of intimidation which included regular protests at the gates, firebomb attacks, a paedophile smear campaign and the cutting of electricity and phone lines.
ends

Watch the bones re-appear and wonder who gets the blame...

anon


Comments

Hide the following 16 comments

Taken long but in the end the strongest always win

23.08.2005 12:19

I believe is taken many years and effort to achieve this and everyone who's taken part shutting down the business of evil needs to be congratulated. This just comes to prove that the only struggle that is lost is the one that is given up.

Julie


nice one

23.08.2005 15:26

Cant say i agreed with all the tactics that have been used over the past few years, but i agreed with the goal.

well done to all those involved.

Kidda


Inspiration!

23.08.2005 16:44

Just to say what an inspiration this will be to other people in other campaigns and movements that are hitting their heads against a brick wall with their current strategies.

The Animal Rights movement are truely dedicated people and this is reflected in their approach.

Other campaigns should take a leaf out of their book and demolish corporations from the bottom upwards - find their weakest spots and strike!

They get results and that's what counts here.

That's a lot more than a lot of people can say in other comparable campaigns and movements.

We are now a day nearer to seeing an end to the corporate vivisection industry!

we are everywhere motherfuckers!
mail e-mail: by_whatever_means_necessary!


Nice one

23.08.2005 19:06

Good one - I note the BBC, Channel 4 etc. gave the last words to those scum and their dodgy science ...Now who's next...So much scum to choose from in this country, the media, corporations, politicians, ruich fuckers - the list is really endless....

guinea pig


Well-titled

23.08.2005 19:09

Nice to see that the article is correctly titled as a victory for hate.

Mark


Own goal

23.08.2005 21:29

This was far from a victory for the animals. It may have demonstrated the effectiveness of harassment and intimidation tactics, but it actually caused more suffering. Now the vivisection labs will be forced to but their guinea pigs from the continent. Now I realise that the guinea pigs weren't given the ritz treatment at Newchurch, but they were better off being bred here where there are a few welfare regulations than on the continent where there aren't any. Still, lets not let little things like that stand in the way of an opportunity to break a few windows!

That said, I think a lot of you are overestimating the resilience of the animal rights campaigners. The only reason they've succeeded to the extent that they have now is because the police are powerless to deal with them. If the government grew a spine then they could deal with it using things like counter-terrorism legislation, double-figure prison sentences, blackmailing people into becoming informants, planting evidence, ect. After all, it worked in America under J. Edgar Hoover with the country's assortment of communist scum, so I see no reason why it shouldn't work here against our own sick deviants.

Humpty Dumpty


The Hell-Hole finally closes!

24.08.2005 07:49

Another victory, surprising though how many people on here still can't think beyond the black and white lines of the newspapers - oh dear.

Other campaigns should note this effectiveness and USE IT. Hanging banners isn't going anywhere. Why aren't GAP windows getting smashed? Nestle offices? There are people being tortured and killed because of these corporations, so does a pane of glass really matter more? What if you met these people? "Sorry I never really bothered to save your life, I didn't want to smash a window...".

As for breeding the guinea pigs aborad - this may well happen - but who will import them? Several major airlines have agreed not to import laboratory animals thanks to the Gateway to Hell campaign. If anyone takes up the offer, they will be target until they drop out. Simple as that.

Random


Food for thought

24.08.2005 09:23

The animal rights movement have shown one thing to other activists - dedication and a range of tactics achieves goals - it also brings repression though, there is now a specific law relating to animal rights under the Serious Organised Crime Act, which means you can go to prison for causing economic sabotage to people involved in vivisection - which doesn't just mean causing physical damage - basically anything affecting profits of a company linked to vivisection!

And you can be sure if they use laws on animal rights, they'll use them on other people - Harassment laws were first used on animal rights, then anti-GM, then anti-Arms Trade and now on striking Gate Gourmet workers, who next?

As for Humpty Dumpty's comments - well for a start they haven't actually caught many people doing the "serious" acts of criminal damage - your suggestion is to plant evidence! What are you ex-Stasi? Have you served with the fascist Caribineri in Italy? And they already give ridiculously long jail sentances - for example Sarah Gisborne got six and half years for damaging some cars! Imagine if you'd done that pissed on a Saturday night after pubs closed - you'd get a fine or community service. The police already have a whole host of laws - they just ain't catching anybody.

Edith


Pyrrhic victory

24.08.2005 14:23

I'm glad to see that the farm in question is closing, but while animal rights activists may have won the battle, there is no way they are going to win the war. Listen to the radio phone-ins, read the postings on websites, even just raise the subject down the local, and you'll see that the majority of people in this country, while wanting to see an end to vivisection in the long-term, are absolutely horrified by the tactics the campaigners have used.

Digging up corpses, threatening to bomb people with vaugue links to the farm, attacking homes with small children inside — this is no way to get what you want in the 21st century, and will lose the movement a huge amount of support.

There are millions of people who would happily join in a protest against such farms, but will not do so because they don't want to be tarred with the same brush as the extremists who have been attacking the farm for the past decade. If you said "animal rights campaigner" to someone 20 years ago they'd have pictured a little old lady who took in thousands of stray cats, and they would have supported them. Say it today, and they think of a thug in a balaclava threatening that same little old lady because her grandson cleans the toilets at a chicken factory, and they want to lock them up and throw away the key.

You can trot out the same old line about this being the fault of the evil capitalist mainstream media if you like, but it doesn't change the reality in which we now live.

In addition, and as has already been stated above, the government has used the crimes of the few to clamp down on the many, making campaigning against such businesses much harder for everyone else.

As for "learning from these tactics for other fights", what are you going to do? Dig up Tony Blair's granny and dump her in the river?

Most depressing is the claim that "the strongest always win in the end". This is exactly the kind of world supposedly left-wing people should be fighting against. I want a world where human decency and co-operation come out on top, not one where people get what they want through violence, with no regard for what anyone who disagrees might think. That way lies the politics of Hitler.


FT


Fuckwit, Troll or Fuckwit Troll?

24.08.2005 16:25

FT wrote:
"I'm glad to see that the farm in question is closing, but while animal rights activists may have won the battle, there is no way they are going to win the war. Listen to the radio phone-ins, read the postings on websites, even just raise the subject down the local, and you'll see that the majority of people in this country, while wanting to see an end to vivisection in the long-term, are absolutely horrified by the tactics the campaigners have used."

Yup - I find that the majority of the population call radio phone-ins, post on websites and visit your local.Without a doubt, these are key indicators of the thoughts of 60 million people - so I guess thats MORI out of business then.

FT wrote:
"Digging up corpses, threatening to bomb people with vaugue links to the farm, attacking homes with small children inside — this is no way to get what you want in the 21st century, and will lose the movement a huge amount of support."

What "movement" would that be then? And, not wishing to piss on your picnic or anything, but I think you'll find that those who committed the grave robbing, house 'attacks' and bomb threats wanted the farm to close, and as if by magic (and according to the farm owner because of the acts of which you complain), IT IS CLOSING and, all in the 21st century.

FT wrote:
"There are millions of people who would happily join in a protest against such farms, but will not do so because they don't want to be tarred with the same brush as the extremists who have been attacking the farm for the past decade. If you said "animal rights campaigner" to someone 20 years ago they'd have pictured a little old lady who took in thousands of stray cats, and they would have supported them. Say it today, and they think of a thug in a balaclava threatening that same little old lady because her grandson cleans the toilets at a chicken factory, and they want to lock them up and throw away the key."

Just out of interest, did the tactics of 20 years ago stop vivisection, or not? Oh, btw, that was a rhetorical question - I'd encourage you not to answer it. We already have cleverer trolls than you flooding the site as it is.

FT wrote:
"In addition, and as has already been stated above, the government has used the crimes of the few to clamp down on the many, making campaigning against such businesses much harder for everyone else."

Did it escape your attention that poeople are being arrested for holding banners in Parliament Square? Did you miss the fact that people are likely to be deported for 'justifying terrorism'. Did you miss the fact that they tried to pass legislation to stop Brian Haw sitting outside the "shite of democracy" (oops seat) with a megaphone? It's almost as if the government will do anything to stop any dissent. Any effective campaign is going to be legislated against. Almost as if the state wants to protect the status quo and maintain the monopoly on violence and the use of illegal force.

FT wrote:
"Most depressing is the claim that "the strongest always win in the end". This is exactly the kind of world supposedly left-wing people should be fighting against. I want a world where human decency and co-operation come out on top, not one where people get what they want through violence, with no regard for what anyone who disagrees might think. That way lies the politics of Hitler"

The state is far closer to the politics of Hitler than the animal rights activists can ever hope to be. With a 'defence' budget of £33Bn - its clearly the strongest as well - especially with unthinking trolls like you swearing blind obedience to it as it inflicts its violence and misery on millions on a daily basis.

Trollfinder General


I give up

24.08.2005 16:53

There is no point trying to have a sensible debate with the people who post on Indymedia. Good luck to you all as you sit around debating the best way to change the world while doing nothing more contructive to bring it about than swearing and saying how much fun it is to break windows. I have never encountered a group of people so staggeringly arrogant as to assume that they have nothing to learn from anyone else, yet so insecure that all they can do is hurl abuse at people who hold many of the same principles and objectives, yet disagree over the best way to bring them about.

I'll leave you to rip shreds of each other while nobody listens. I hope you enjoy each other's company.

FT


FT

24.08.2005 18:04

It's absolutely true that animal rights activists never listen to reason. They can't be defeated with debate so they have to be defeated with brute force and intimidation. You have to fight fire with fire. It would be easy to do it, use infiltration, the formenting of factionalism and assassinations of the mostserious thugs. And perhaps against some of them it would be a good idea to use the same tactics that they do - send agents in to destroy their property, threaten their families, ect. After all, these people use these tactics themselves, so what's wrong with using it against them? Now is the perfect opportunity to this, especially with thecreation of SOCA.

Of course, it won't happen because we have one of the most pathetic, gutless governments in the world, run by people unwilling and unable to deal with anything in a strong and direct manner.

Humpty Dumpty


Push off Humpty

24.08.2005 22:14

You've been told before

RogerRabbit


A note of caution, FT

25.08.2005 07:25

FT and Humpty, don't be so naive about how the media portrays the debate to suit the views and prejudices of its editors.

I work as a researcher for a prestigious morning national radio phone-in show. We had a ton of texts and calls from sympathisers to the animal cause. Hardly any were read out or asked to speak and those who were broadcast were picked out because they sounded like inarticulate nutcases rather than the many more lucid people who would have been better ambassadors to their cause. Of course, on the pro-vivisection side, the opposite was true.

So be a bit careful about who is creating and perpetuating stereotypes.

tom


This just shows brutality and violence always win

25.08.2005 13:42

You can't fight a War on Terror, or Destroy the Arms Trade - these are oxymorons. Simlarly, you can't end suffering by inflicting suffering. 'An eye for an eye' is the same kind of f*cked logic that Israeli settlers and mobsters use. I would like to see an end to animal experimentation - but not the way you facists want to bring it about. Congratulations on your 'victory' you Nazis.

Craig, Nottingham


Good riddance

30.08.2005 11:14

Craig are you suggesting that sit down peaceful protests would have stopped Hitler and his Nazis, get a grip. Sometimes force has to be used on people who think its ok to brutalize animals and humans for there own selfish gains.

Shrek


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