GANDALF trial

Last updated

GANDALF was an acronym ( Green Anarchist and ALF ) for the 1997 trial in the UK of the editors of Green Anarchist magazine, as well as two prominent British supporters of the Animal Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group (ALF SG), on charges of conspiracy to incite criminal damage.

Beginning in 1995, the Hampshire police under "Operation Washington" began a series of at least 56 raids, which resulted in the AugustNovember 1997 trial in Portsmouth of Green Anarchist editors Steven Booth, Saxon Burchnall-Wood, Noel Molland, and Paul Rogers, as well as the ALF UK press officer Robin Webb and ALF SG newsletter editor Simon Russell. The defendants organized the GANDALF defence campaign. The editors of Green AnarchistMolland, Burchnall-Wood and Boothwere sentenced to three years in jail for conspiracy to incite criminal damage. After four and a half months, all three were released pending an appeal, and their convictions were later overturned. [1]

Notes

  1. The Journalist, National Union of Journalists, 1997, p. 73.


Related Research Articles

<i>Green Anarchist</i> British magazine

The Green Anarchist, established in 1984 in the UK, was a magazine advocating green anarchism.

Eco-terrorism is an act of violence which is committed in support of environmental causes, against people or property.

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates. It has been the subject of several major leaks or undercover investigations by activists and reporters since 1989.

The Seattle Liberation Front, or SLF, was a radical anti-Vietnam War movement, based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. The group, founded by the University of Washington visiting philosophy professor and political activist Michael Lerner, carried out its protest activities from 1970 to 1971. The most famous members of the SLF were the "Seattle Seven," who were charged with "conspiracy to incite a riot" in the wake of a violent protest at a courthouse. The members of the Seattle Seven were Lerner, Michael Abeles, Jeff Dowd, Joe Kelly, Susan Stern, Roger Lippman and Charles Marshall III.

Barry Horne was an English animal rights activist. He became known around the world in December 1998, when he engaged in a 68-day hunger strike in an effort to persuade the government to hold a public inquiry into animal testing, something the Labour Party had said it would do before it came to power in 1997. The hunger strike took place while Horne was serving an 18-year sentence for planting incendiary devices in stores that sold fur coats and leather products, the longest sentence handed down to any animal rights activist by a British court.

Robin Webb is an English animal rights activist. He is a former member of the ruling council of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), and former director of Animal Aid. A British court ruled in 2006 that Webb was a "central and pivotal figure" in the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

SPEAK is a British animal rights group working to end animal testing in the UK.

Ronnie Lee is a British animal rights activist. He is known primarily for being the Press Officer for the UK Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in 1976. He also founded the magazine Arkangel in 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal Liberation Press Office</span> Press office for several animal rights clandestine cells

Animal Liberation Press Offices relay anonymous communiques, photos, and videos to the media about direct action undertaken by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), Animal Rights Militia (ARM), Revolutionary Cells – Animal Liberation Brigade, Justice Department, and other leaderless resistance within the animal liberation movement. It states that it will "explain and seek to justify any action, whatever it may be", so long as it appears to have been carried out "with the sincere intention of furthering animal liberation." The North American press office also includes a newsletter, prisoner list and merchandise page.

Operation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI. The operation resulted in convictions and imprisonment of a number of people, many of whom were members of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Scare</span> US government action against the radical environmental movement

The Green Scare is legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement, that occurred mostly in the 2000s. It alludes to the Red Scares, periods of fear over communist infiltration of US society.

Darren Todd Thurston is a former Canadian animal rights activist.

This timeline of Animal Liberation Front (ALF) actions describes the history, consequences and theory of direct action on behalf of animals by animal liberation activists using, or associated with the ALF.

The Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network (ELPSN), also known as Spirit of Freedom, is a network to provide information on people imprisoned for direct action relating to campaigns on environmental and other issues. It includes earth liberationists, animal liberationists, those fighting on anti-war, anti-nuclear and peace issues, indigenous struggles, anti-fascism, land rights, ploughshares and more.

The Western Animal Rights Network (WARN) first appeared in 2005 as a coalition for animal rights groups in the West of England and South Wales and acted as a news service for animal rights demos and action reports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Yates</span>

Roger Yates is an English lecturer in sociology at University College Dublin and the University of Wales, specialising in animal rights. He is a former executive committee member of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), a former Animal Liberation Front (ALF) press officer, and a co-founder of the Fur Action Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal Liberation Front</span> Animal rights direct action organization

The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, leaderless, decentralized movement that emerged in Britain in the 1970s, evolving from the Bands of Mercy. It operates without a formal leadership structure and engages in direct actions aimed at opposing animal cruelty.

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Total liberation</span> Political movement

Total liberation, also referred to as total liberation ecology or veganarchism, is a political philosophy and movement that combines anarchism with a commitment to animal and earth liberation. Whilst more traditional approaches to anarchism have often focused primarily on opposing the state and capitalism, total liberation is additionally concerned with opposing all additional forms of human oppression as well as the oppression of other animals and ecosystems. Proponents of total liberation typically espouse a holistic and intersectional approach aimed at using direct action to dismantle all forms of domination and hierarchy, common examples of which include the state, capitalism, patriarchy, racism, heterosexism, cissexism, disablism, ageism, speciesism, and ecological domination.

The campaign against Highgate Rabbit Farm, also known as the Close Highgate Farm campaign, is a series of direct actions by anti-vivisection activists. Highgate Rabbit Farm in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire in England is licensed by the Home Office to breed rabbits and ferrets for animal-testing facilities, including Huntingdon Life Sciences. Actions have included a raid by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and an arson claimed by the Militant Forces Against HLS. The ALF raid in 2008 saw 129 rabbits removed and £100,000-worth of damage to property. The campaign has been linked to activists involved in Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).