The Newchurch Guinea Pigs

[Kevster]

There is going to be a national demonstration to protest the Newchurch Guinea Pig farm, it is planned to take place in Burton Upon Trent.

There will be a march, speakers, hot food, marquee, stalls and videos.

For more info:

www.liberation-now.org

[Plunder Bunnie]

Okay, what if you dont live in the area? Is there anything you can do? I have to guinea pigs of my own, and seeing those poor little guys gives me one more reaosn to hate the human race! Is there anything we can do?>

[tails4wagging]

Join the campaign give a donation??

[Kumem]

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- David Hall & Partners, a family- owned U.K. company that raises guinea pigs used for clinical testing, will shut its operations after a six-year campaign by opponents of animal experimentation that the family says included the desecration of a relative's grave.

The Hall family plans to return to ``traditional farming'' at the end of the year, the Newchurch, England-based company said today in an e-mailed statement released by local police.

The family hopes the decision will lead to the return of the body of Gladys Hammond, the mother-in-law of one of the Halls, which was stolen from its grave in October.

The announcement of the closure comes two months after Phytopharm Plc, a U.K. biotechnology company, lost its broker, Canaccord Capital Inc., after anti-animal-testing protesters firebombed a Canaccord executive's car. Groups including Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs, the Animal Liberation Front and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty have targeted companies including Huntingdon Life Sciences Group Plc, which tests products on animals, to stop such testing.

An unidentified spokesman for Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs said in a recorded message that the Halls' announcement was ``fantastic news.'' The group is now concerned whether the guinea pigs are ``released to caring homes or whether they will be sent to labs.''

`Impossible Pressure'

``The activities of a few animal-rights extremists have placed impossible pressure on those going about their legitimate business,'' said Philip Wright, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's science and technology director, in an e-mailed statement. ``While animal-rights extremists are likely to be only one factor in the final decision, it does underline the need for greater protection of those targeted.''

Staffordshire police said they have responded to more than 460 incidents at the Halls' Darley Oaks Farm, located about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Birmingham, since January 2003. The incidents ranged from the use of ``pyrotechnic devises to threatening mail and damage to vehicles and property.''

The police are continuing to investigate the desecration of Hammond's grave, they said in a statement. The woman was the mother-in-law of Christopher Hall, who is involved in the guinea- pig business. She was not involved in the business herself.

Drugmakers including Novartis AG, Switzerland's biggest, have urged the U.K. government to protect workers, following attacks on animal-testing facilities. These companies are spending less on research in the U.K. and the trend may continue because of attacks of animal-rights activists, a trade association said in April.

Huntingdon's Move

Huntingdon, which has facilities near Cambridge, England, and in East Millstone, New Jersey, moved its headquarters to the U.S. in 2001 after managing director Brian Cass was attacked with a baseball bat outside his home.

Phytopharm was developing an experimental Alzheimer's treatment with Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co. before the Japanese company decided not to continue development in March.

The U.K. is strengthening laws against animal-rights protesters, adding two new offenses -- one of breaking laws with the intention of threatening or interfering with contracts involving an animal research organization and another making it illegal to threaten someone because they're associated with animal research.

The new laws make it an offense to protest outside someone's home in a way that causes alarm or distress, changes harassment rules to cover companies and gives the police more powers to move protesters.

[vegandolly]

And all thanks to the tireless dedication of my friends via http://www.liberation-now.org/featur..._struggle.html

[screamingcarrot]

just read this article on the bbc website..what does everyone think?
hope the link works!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/s...re/4176094.stm

[VeganJohn]

Just seen on the news, it's closing at the end of the year!!

Bet some champagne corks are going the journey tonight!

[yum]

that article made me so angry

[vegandolly]

I think that the media/the government/the pharmasutical companies and ALL those who make a fat profit from the vivisection industry are happy to tar all animal rights activists with the same brush.

This http://www.liberation-now.org/featur..._struggle.html was a LAWFUL campaign yet its lawful activities and its valid causes(the suffering of animals and the danger to human health of vivisection)are conveniently overlooked in the name of sensationalist media stories

But

One of the campaign leaders,Amanda, just got 5 minutes of Channel Four air time telling Jon Snow and the rest of the nation why animal testing/vivisection is a threat/invalid to human health and she gave lots of valid examples including Vioxx,thalidomide and penicilin...wuhooOne of the campaign leaders,Amanda, just got 5 minutes of Channel Four air time telling Jon Snow and the rest of the nation why animal testing/vivisection is a threat/invalid to human health and she gave lots of valid examples including Vioxx,thalidomide and penicilin...wuhoo

[miss_laura]

Yay =D

I used to protest there on Sundays, glad all the hard work of the protesters and activists is finally close to paying off!

[vegandolly]

Yay =D

I used to protest there on Sundays, glad all the hard work of the protesters and activists is finally close to paying off!

Cool,your efforts paid off!

Do you know my wonderful friends Jean(and her infamous flasks of vegan hot chocolate) and Ray?

[Glen]

Whether or not you think 'terrorist' like activism works, or is moral, this is definately a great day for animal rights. Article here

[snaffler]

I will keep my reaction free from words as I am on best behaviour these days

[Pob]

Yesterday was a good day.

Today is not, though: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4178166.stm

More than 500 UK scientists and doctors have pledged their support for animal testing in medical research.

Nice, non-biased footage they have there of animals in a research facility

[Kiran]

I will keep my reaction free from words as I am on best behaviour these days

Me too.

[vegandolly]

Yesterday was a good day.

Today is not, though: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4178166.stm


Nice, non-biased footage they have there of animals in a research facility

On a positive note,"
Early Day Motion tabled in the House of Commons by Tony Banks MP

That this House welcomes the decision by Cambridge University to abandon the proposed construction of a primate laboratory; notes the conclusion of the planning inspector that the University had failed to demonstrate the need for such a laboratory; regrets the subsequent overruling of the planning inspector's recommendations by the First Secretary of State; congratulates the National Anti-Vivisection Society, the local authority and residents and other groups for their sustained and ultimately successful campaign against the laboratory; believes that the use of primates for medical experimentation is immoral, unethical and repugnant; and calls for such experiments to be made unlawful"

[catmogg]

Well i'm rather about it closing down too. I support the Dr. Hadwen Trust, they undertake medical reasearch without any animal experimentation.

[screamingcarrot]

im glad it closed down but i dont know if it was necessary to dig up the remains of that old lady, v weird.
on the news this morning i saw the brief report about those nobel peace prize winners supporting vivsection. i burst into tears when they shoved the tube down the poor mouses throat.

[vegandolly]

im glad it closed down but i dont know if it was necessary to dig up the remains of that old lady, v weird.
on the news this morning i saw the brief report about those nobel peace prize winners supporting vivsection. i burst into tears when they shoved the tube down the poor mouses throat.

There is no proof that any animal rights activists are responsible for the digging up of that body.

It could have been done by someone who wants to vilify/incriminate animal rights people.

Please dont jump to conclusions.

[Skajen]

People really do believe that all animal rights belivers are thugs! i tried to explain to a family member yesterday that not many AR people would dig up an old ladies body she just looked at me in a funny way and walked off. if your pro animal life, your also pro-human life- why can't people see we aren't all bad?


p.s. GREAT NEWS on guinea pig farm, even if the methods were a bit....well u know!

[LittleMissVegan]

I know what you all mean about everyone thinking bad about animal right activists. It doesn't matter what the cause or organisation there are always vigilantes- look at the people who attack/terrorise people on the sex offenders register- they're not all like that some protst peacefully but it's the extremists that get reported the most!!!

[aubergine]

Yesterday was a good day.

Today is not, though: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4178166.stm


Nice, non-biased footage they have there of animals in a research facility

It's amazing what imbiciles will say to keep their jobs.

[chons]

Its a shame really... The company isn't changing it's business because it believe this way is the better way but because they are too scared to do anything different.

Graverobbing... Firebombs... Attacking people with baseball bats... It's all to extreme for me. It's no suprise that all animal rights followers are branded as vicious people when stuff like this goes on.

There are better ways to protest... Changes my take longer to achieve by going the morally nice way but I believe it to be the proper way.

At least there is change I suppose.

[tails4wagging]

Opened a bottle of red wine to celebrate.. Been on a couple of demos there.

[tails4wagging]

I will keep my reaction free from words as I am on best behaviour these days

Yes, so do I snaff!. Oh shut my mouth

[adam antichrist]

If someone dug up my gran I wouldn't give a fk. Whats the worst thing they could do... bury her somewhere else???


It's funny if these people cared more about the dead body of their dead relative than the live animals that they reared themselves.

Funny in a very sad kind of way.

[Kiran]

I wonder what testing companies are gonna do now for guniea pigs!! They will be quite desperate for what they call "live specimens".

[adam antichrist]

Surely that wasn't the only farm?

I suppose eventually if enough private contractors give it over, they (corporations who do animal research) will breed animals themselves. However I think it's more likely that they, since they are the ones with all the money; will increase their terrorist actions not only within but perhaps outside the law in order to intimidate activists.

[tails4wagging]

I guess they will get the guineas from overseas .

The last demo I went to One of the family was arragantly mowing the lawn, while we shouted, waved banners etc,. He felt safe though as the farm was cordaned of by the cops.

[The_Lincoln_Imp]

Well the grave remains aren't proven to be stolen by AR activists so it's a bit weird thats always reported as assumed. And as Adam says it's ludicrous human arrogance to value their dead remains above live suffering animals. Goes without saying many scientists will sign up for testing just as Ronald McDonald would sign up for beefburgers petition.

This story was a day's main headline not glorify the guinea pigs angle as a positive but to beat AR by and paint them as bullies, thugs and "terrorists". You'd think to view this story that the Halls had closed down the whole farm in order to get poor old grannies body back when it was surely much more of a business decision. Look for further repressive laws to come in to stifle legitimate protest.

Anyway for now the Guinea Pigs still aren't freed, they plan to keep on with it til the end of the year no? So no consolation to those being bred for science labs as we speak. A neglected fact in all of this was many of them were to be used for commercial testing rather than "human life saving research" as the media likes to convey.

[Gliondrach]

As Tails4 said, guinea pigs will probably be bred and even tested on abroad. My first thought was that the poor little devils will be without any protection, but then I realised that, even here, the law cannot protect them from the callous scum who work with them. We have all seen evidence that the legislation, for what it's worth, is flouted daily and that the animals here have very little protection where everything is done behind closed doors. Who knows that the animals are treated as the law requires? If this vile business of breeding and testing is driven abroad to some country that has less concern for animals, will the lives of the animals be worse than they would be here?

We will have less influence on foreign testers but it will always be inevitable that when testing ends in one country it will continue in another. If it's true that research animals in otther countries are no worse off than they would be here, there can be no argument against driving this practice out of this country. The only argument for keeping it here is that the animals can be protected from the worst abuses. We have seen that they are not protected. I believe they won't be any worse off abroad. I hope I am right.

I think that animal testing will only come to an end when methods are found which are completely accepted by everyone to be better and more accurate. Continued animal experiments will lead to the deaths of more humans when the drugs they are prescribed kill them A few more human deaths caused by drugs that were tested on animals may be a further stimulus to find a better way. Isn't it sad that this may be the only way to get changes? How much better it would be if compassion was the spur instead.

[gertvegan]

Animal rights and wrongs

The campaign against the Newchurch guinea pig farm may have shocked, but Nelson Mandela would understand it

Adam Nicolson, Wednesday August 24, 2005, The Guardian

No one, I think, would put the attempt to liberate the Newchurch guinea pigs on a par with the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa. A few thousand - or even a few tens of thousands - of furry laboratory animals is not on the same scale as an entire repressed nation. But perhaps the two struggles are not as far apart as you think.

The Hall family's decision to close down their guinea-pigs-for-laboratories enterprise, and return to more traditional farming, is a result of terrorism. The family, and almost everyone they know, have been the target of sabotage, bomb hoaxes, hate mail, a paedophile smear campaign, malicious phone calls and arson attacks. Most appallingly, the body of Gladys Hammond, a Hall family relative, was dug up and her bones kidnapped. Electricity pylons have been blown up. There have been demos outside the farm every Sunday and Wednesday for the past five years.

All of these are clearly forms of terror, delivered by people who have thought, and probably rightly, that their campaign for the better treatment of the guinea pigs would not get anywhere if they used more polite, or less violent methods. The science and government establishments have been set against them and, to stay true to their ideals, they have had no alternative.

We all hate terrorists, but as a side-light on this nasty and bitter corner of modern life, it is interesting to read what Nelson Mandela, at his trial for violence and sabotage in October 1963, had to say about those crimes. This was the trial at which he was convicted and sent to Robben Island for life. He admitted quite freely that he was guilty of what he was accused of. "I do not deny that I planned sabotage," he told the court. "I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation. Without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle."

As a small armed wing of the ANC, Mandela had formed Umkhonto we Sizwe, meaning Spear of the Nation, because without such a channel, any violence would have been chaotic and far more destructive. The leaders of the ANC felt they had no other option. Mandela quoted Chief Lutuli, who had led the ANC in the 1950s: "Who will deny that 30 years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately and modestly at a closed and barred door? What have been the fruits of moderation? The past 30 years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all."

It is largely forgotten now but Mandela received guerrilla training in Algeria. The notes he made from the lectures he attended there were produced in court. He studied Clausewitz, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. He prepared himself, quite cold-headedly, as he told the court, for "guerrilla warfare. I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people to share the hazards of war with them." It never came to that because he was caught and imprisoned before he could take up arms. The sabotage of government buildings and electricity pylons and setting up the training regimes for recruits was all he was responsible for.

There is, in this comparison, a problem of scale and, to be honest, of seriousness, but there is not a deep or very real distinction in principle. Mandela's term for his control of Umkhonto we Sizwe was "properly controlled violence". Seen simply in tactical and strategic terms, that phrase would be perfectly appropriate for the things that animal rights activists have been doing to the Halls, their friends, families, employees and neighbours. Digging up the body of Gladys Hammond - deeply shocking as it is - is nevertheless a very precisely calibrated act of terror. Not in moral but in these tactical terms, you could see it as a form of "properly controlled violence".

It may be in the future that the use of large numbers of animals to test drugs, for which the motivation is often commercial, not humanitarian, will come to seem outrageous and that the treatment of animals in our society will be thought of as one of our great blindspots. (Nothing new there: ducks in Tudor England had their feet nailed to the floor so that their flesh would not be coarsened by exercise.) If that does happen, then the campaign to close down the guinea pig sheds at Darley Oaks Farm will surely look like a violent, necessary and ugly step on the long march to freedom.

[The_Lincoln_Imp]

If anyone's got the stomach for it, The Daily Mail tackle the topic in todays paper. The title being "THE MONSTERS WHO DESTROYED MY LIFE" and opening sub-line "Read this utterly harrowing account of a mother whose family was also targetted and decide: which matters more, animal rights or human suffering?".

I'll let you guess which answer the right-wing paper sides with.

[Kevster]

Fortunately not all the attention came down to grave digging, crazy animal lovers, and terrorism, there was a little info on the 'science' of animal testing, some of which was in The Guardian today, see The Shite-ian thread for more info.

Hopefully the people writing these articles are going to start to look into some of the arguments behind the protests, instead of taking them at their own perceived face value.

[Kiran]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4176898.stm

__

[Kevster]

'Home Office bans US Philosopher from entering UK

Dr Steve Best, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Humanities and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Texas is the latest professionally-regarded animal rights advocate to be denied entry to the UK. The Home Office barring order has been made on the grounds that his behaviour - in giving an anti-vivisection speech - would not be 'in the public good'.

Following the announcement that Darley Oaks farm, breeders of guinea pigs for medical experiments, is to close at the end of the year, Dr Best was due to speak at the Save the Newchurch Guinea Pig Campaign's victory gathering this Saturday (3rd Sept). The Home Secretary has now instructed him not to travel to the UK as he will not be allowed entry.

The Home Secretary's move amounts to an extreme and unjustifiable suppression of free speech.

Dr Best’s exclusion order follows that of Dr Jerry Vlasak, a respected US trauma surgeon and former animal researcher, along with his wife Pam. Both were banned from entering the UK last August, at which time he had hoped to give a talk on animal experiments and their lack of scientific credibility.

Dr Best’s banning order is yet another example of the government’s attempts to stifle a legitimate and vital debate.

The Newchurch campaign victory gathering will still go ahead in Burton, Staffs, this Saturday to celebrate the closure of a business responsible for the mass production of guinea pigs destined for lethal and pointless research.'

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/news/2005/0508best.htm

[Kiran]

I can understand why Dr. Jerry Vlasak was not allowed into the UK. He is active with SHAC, and the more significant fact is that he is one of the spokesperson for the ALF in the United States. The ALF openly claims the association of Dr. Jerry Vlasak with the organisation. That explains why he is not allowed into UK. He is reputed for his controversial AR statements and open support for the ALF.

[Kevster]

Oh, that'll be why Dr Best hasn't been allowed in either.

[Kiran]

Oh, that'll be why Dr Best hasn't been allowed in either.

I think so. But Dr.Best and Dr. Jerry always deliver their lectures to the masses in ther UK through Video Tapes. This is what happend even in the AR2005 conference near Kent. The AR2005 gathering has been referred to by the media as a gathering of fanatical AR groups like, ALF, ELF, SHAC etc. This event happens every year, and there are normally undercover police officers to detect any illegal activity. So people who go for this conference are not allowed photography and not allowed to talk to the press usually. Dr Jerry was not allowed to come for this event this year. His speech was seen by many people through a recorded tape. The AR2005 UK gathering went off peacefully this year. This is not the first time Dr. Jerry has been refused entry into UK.

[catmogg]

Yet they let Pinochet in...

[Kevster]

And George W

[Kiran]

And George W

Ha Ha.. Good one Kev,, Good one!!

[lydia]

ok well im not really sure whats goin on about this at themoment anyone care to tell, please? o andwhat have they done withthe guineapigs can the pupblic adopt them.

[VeganJohn]

I was also wondering when the farm is closing - they said 'at the end of the year', not many days left are there??

[alisont]

Id like to know the up to date situation too as I have friends thru a guinea pig forum who run rescues and would be able to rehome lots of the guinea pigs if they were available but from what ive heard there is not much chance of that?

Alison

[Maisiepaisie]

No one seems to know anything about the situation. Its very strange. My guess is that all the guineapigs have been sold to labs

[alisont]

Thats what i gathered very sad and that.

Alison

[lydia]

why would they have been sold to labs i thought it was activists who saved them surly they wouldnt want to sell them on to another lab

[Maisiepaisie]

why would they have been sold to labs i thought it was activists who saved them surly they wouldnt want to sell them on to another lab

Activists forced the farm to announce their decision to close at the end of 2005. The guineapigs were never saved. They remained at the farm as the owners refused to release them

Edited to add I just found this new information http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/detail.a...ews&id=6085651

[lydia]

they want to start dairy farming i really did think they saved 600 guineas