Students protest against animal rights campaign
Donald MacLeod
Wednesday February 22 2006
The Guardian
Students and staff at Oxford University are to defy animal rights campaigners
and demonstrate in support of a controversial £163;20m research facility.
Organisers, PRO-Test, expect the rally on Saturday to attract between 200 and
500 people, including students from University College London and Imperial
College London.
The new biomedical facility has been targeted by animal rights protesters and
work was halted for 16 months when the contractors pulled out in the face of
threats. Building has now resumed, but the campaigners are widening their
activities to target firms or donors connected to the university.
Speak, an Oxford-based group which has called its own anti-university
demonstration for Saturday, insists on peaceful protest, but the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) has threatened violence and damage to property belonging
to any bodies maintaining contacts to the university.
A website posting by the ALF claimed it had attacked Oxford Architects and
warned: "This is just the beginning of our campaign of devastation against
anyone linked in any way to Oxford University. Every individual and business
that works for the university as a whole is now a major target of the ALF. The
University have made a crass decision to take us on and we will never let them
win."
Saturday's pro-laboratory demonstration, starting in Broad Street, will hear
speakers including Dr Simon Festing, director of the Research Defence Society,
Professor Tipu Aziz, consultant neurosurgeon at Oxford, local Liberal Democrat
MP Dr Evan Harris, and Laurie Pycroft, founder of PRO-Test.
A poll of 210 students published by the student newspaper Cherwell, found that
85% of students believed the labs should be completed.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Donald MacLeod
Wednesday February 22 2006
The Guardian
Students and staff at Oxford University are to defy animal rights campaigners
and demonstrate in support of a controversial £163;20m research facility.
Organisers, PRO-Test, expect the rally on Saturday to attract between 200 and
500 people, including students from University College London and Imperial
College London.
The new biomedical facility has been targeted by animal rights protesters and
work was halted for 16 months when the contractors pulled out in the face of
threats. Building has now resumed, but the campaigners are widening their
activities to target firms or donors connected to the university.
Speak, an Oxford-based group which has called its own anti-university
demonstration for Saturday, insists on peaceful protest, but the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) has threatened violence and damage to property belonging
to any bodies maintaining contacts to the university.
A website posting by the ALF claimed it had attacked Oxford Architects and
warned: "This is just the beginning of our campaign of devastation against
anyone linked in any way to Oxford University. Every individual and business
that works for the university as a whole is now a major target of the ALF. The
University have made a crass decision to take us on and we will never let them
win."
Saturday's pro-laboratory demonstration, starting in Broad Street, will hear
speakers including Dr Simon Festing, director of the Research Defence Society,
Professor Tipu Aziz, consultant neurosurgeon at Oxford, local Liberal Democrat
MP Dr Evan Harris, and Laurie Pycroft, founder of PRO-Test.
A poll of 210 students published by the student newspaper Cherwell, found that
85% of students believed the labs should be completed.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
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That Cherwell "poll"
22.02.2006 13:29
85% of students believed the labs should be completed."
Good old Guardian. They left out a bit of detail on that "poll" by Cherwell: it's a bloody online vote, and hardly scientific.
You can walk around a whole roomful of PCs in the uni Computer Rooms, and vote as many times as you like, or you can simply change the IP address on your own PC and keep voting away all night long, if that's what you enjoy.
Or you can write a trivially simple script to do the change-n-vote trick for you, if you're pressed for time but still want to feed complete shite to the clueless Grauniad.
Here's that highly useful and informative Cherwell poll:
And here's the address of the above corporate press article that someone's copied and pasted here:
David
I love this, talk about stooopid.
22.02.2006 14:15
How stupid are this lot gonna feel. I doubt half of them will even bother turning up.
this is so funny I can hardly believe it.
Is there no end to the stupidity of this class of people. You really have to be incredibly thick to do this. I'm gonna go with my Camera and take pictures of them all for future reference. ;o).
jools.
jools