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. [1] [2]
It re-launched in August 2007 and continued to work towards total animal liberation using direct action and protests to fulfil this goal. There was also an expansion to include not just South Wales but all of Wales, providing the country with its first animal rights national group. [2] [3]
The website is also used by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in the same way the international group use the magazine Bite Back to anonymously report their criminal activities. Under a disclaimer stating that the network does not "encourage any illegal activities", the group publishes claims of various forms of illegal liberation and vandalism, including acts against McDonald's, KFC and the property of hunters. [4] [5]
Following the arrests of the Stop Sequani Animal Testing (SSAT) campaigners in May 2006, when 13 animal rights activists were arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA), WARN supported six of the activists who had the most serious charges against them. Similar to the SHAC 7, six individuals who received jail sentences in the United Kingdom of between 3–6 years for using their website to "incite attacks" on those who did business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, [6] the campaigners have been called the Sequani Six after a seventh accepted a plea bargain. [7] [8] in 2008, Sean Kirtley was jailed for four and a half years for a sustained protest campaign and David Griffiths received a 30-week prison sentence, both for conspiracy to interfere with the contractual relationships of an animal research organisation. [9]
On 15 December, approximately 100–150 demonstrators marched against Sequani Ltd in Ledbury town centre. Section 12 and Section 14 of the Public Order Act were applied to limit the number of protesters then going to the laboratory to a maximum of fifteen. A spokesperson for WARN argued that the policing was heavy-handed, resulting in a female protester thrown back by police for distributing leaflets. [10] [11]
During the march, activists attempted to blockade a road near the High Street, in solidarity with the Sequani Six. [12] Two activists were arrested for trying to D-lock themselves together, whilst another three locked together using arm tubes, which were then eventually cut to release the individuals. The five were arrested and released on bail later that evening until February 2008. [10] [11] [13]
It was promoted by various sources, through local media, activist based, and by the network, that a Carnival Against Vivisection was to be held in Ledbury, without an original source for the organising of the event. [14] As the police called for organisers to step forward and reveal their identities, protesters said they were demonstrating in solidarity with Sean Kirtley, who was sentenced to prison in May for his part in the campaign against Sequani laboratories, including the organising of marches with police. [15] [16]
On the day of action 200 activists marched through Ledbury, many wearing black and green, with others beating drums, waving flags and sounding airhorns. [17]
On 7 January, WARN reported that a chicken named Rocky was "rescued" from Uphampton Farm, Shobdon, Herefordshire at the second biggest poultry slaughterhouse in the UK. [18] This was in response to the recent high-profile campaign on the television by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver who showed their concern at some of aspects of the farming industry, including Sun Valley Foods, the supplier where the bird was taken from. [19] The activists claimed to have avoided the security checkpoint, by hiding behind a transport lorry, in order to investigate the conditions [18] that Compassion in World Farming said were poor at the site in Shobdon. [19]
The group said the conditions were so bad, that instead an individual took an opportunity to rescue a chicken, which was named Rocky, after the film Chicken Run , he was then allegedly chased by four security guards and a van, but escaped. [18] One male was arrested and released later that night on bail for attempted burglary, the police spokesman confirmed this and said that they were still looking for another man in connection with the offence. [18] Sun Valley refuted the allegations of cruelty and bad conditions saying that the responsibility they have towards animal welfare is very serious, with employees trained to ensure the highest standards possible. [19] The activists involved have since had all charges dropped and no further action is to be taken by West Mercia Police.
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the largest non-clinical CRO in Europe. In September 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Harlan Laboratories, GFA, NDA Analytics and LSR associates merged into Envigo, which later sold off the CRO part.
Rodney Adam Coronado is an American animal rights and environmental activist known for his militant direct actions in the late 1980s and 1990s. As part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, he sank two whaling ships and destroyed Iceland's sole whale-processing facility in 1986. He led the Animal Liberation Front's Operation Bite Back campaign against the fur industry and its supporting institutions in the early 1990s, which was involved in multiple firebombings. Following an attack on a Michigan State University mink research center in early 1992, Coronado was jailed for nearly five years. He later admitted to being the sole perpetrator. The 1992 federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act was created in response to his actions. The operation continued with a focus on liberating animals rather than property destruction. Coronado also worked with Earth First.
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.
Jerry Vlasak is an American animal rights activist and former trauma surgeon. He is a press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, a former director of the Animal Defense League of Los Angeles, and a former advisor to SPEAK, the Voice for the Animals.
Keith Mann is a British animal rights campaigner and direct action activist who acted as a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and was alleged by police in 2005 to be a ringleader for the ALF. He was imprisoned twice, and is the author of From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement (2007).
The Justice Department (JD) was founded in the United Kingdom by animal rights activists who declared they were willing to use a diversity of tactics up to and including violence against their opponents. Initially calling for "abusers to have but a taste of the fear and anguish their victims suffer on a daily basis", activists established a separate idea from adhering to the Animal Liberation Front's (ALF) guidelines of non-violent resistance, similar to that of the Animal Rights Militia (ARM).
Greg Avery is a British animal rights activist and former criminal. He has been involved with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), an international campaign to force the closure of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), an animal testing company based in the UK and US. Avery has several prison sentences and served time for assaulting a policeman.
The animal rightsmovement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that advocates an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries.
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.
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.
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 Consort beagles campaign was founded in 1996 by British animal rights activists Greg Avery and Heather James, with a view to closing Consort Kennels in Hereford, a commercial breeder of beagles for animal testing laboratories.
Mel Brown is a British landscape gardener and animal rights activist who rose to public prominence due to a planned bombing campaign aimed at preventing the construction of a new research laboratory at Oxford University. He was the co-founder in 2004, with Robert Cogswell, of SPEAK, The Voice for the Animals, a campaign to stop animal testing in Britain, which is focused on opposition to a new animal laboratory at Oxford University.
Heather Nicholson is a British animal rights activist.
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).
Andy Thayer is an American socialist, LGBTQ rights and anti-war activist. He is co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network, one of the largest LGBTQ direction-action groups in Chicago. He is also the co-founder of Chicago Coalition Against War & Racism.
Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is an international grassroots network of animal rights activists founded in 2013 in the San Francisco Bay Area. DxE uses disruptive protests and non-violent direct action tactics, such as open rescue of animals from factory farms. Their intent is to build a movement that can eventually shift culture and change social and political institutions. DxE activists work to "put an end to the commodity status of animals."
Jake Conroy is an American animal rights activist and vegan who was involved with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), an international campaign to force the closure of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), an animal-testing company based in the UK and US, for which he designed and maintained the SHAC websites. Conroy had previously been a co-founder and activist for an anti-whaling group Ocean Defense International, formally called Sea Defence Alliance, and director of Northwest Animal Rights Network.