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Oxford University is next UK target after Cambridge
The animal rights activists behind the campaign that forced the University of Cambridge to abandon their plans for a new primate neuroscience facility have announced that their next target will be the University of Oxford, UK, which has just started the construction of a new animal facility.
The new £18 million animal facility is being built in the university's science area, close to the departments of experimental psychology, pharmacology and physiology. The building will bring together animals currently housed at several different sites and will operate as a 'research hotel'. A spokesman for the university said, "All animals will be accommodated in the highest quality conditions. The university believes that bringing closely-related facilities, used by a range of science departments, under one roof will facilitate more effective collaboration between departments and sharing of best practice."
Operating under the name 'SPEAK Campaigns' the animal rights campaigners stated that their objective was "to make sure that no expansion of the vivisection industry can be allowed to happen, no matter where it rears its ugly head." They claim that some of the primate neuroscience research that would have been carried out at the proposed Cambridge centre will now be done at the Oxford facility. The university has rejected this suggestion.
Dr Mark Matfield, Director of the Research Defence Society commented, "The main players behind this campaign are mostly old-time ALF activists with a long record of extremism. Some of them have been arrested many times for incidents of public disorder and other ALF-related activities. They were all previously involved in the campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences and we expect them to use the same sort of tactics of harassment, intimidation and damage."
The local MP Dr Evan Harris called upon the government to underwrite the additional costs incurred by research institutions when protecting their staff against protestors. "What happened at Cambridge was a disaster," he said, "It should not fall to the research community or to the University to pay for the cost of policing the protests."
Responding to the launch of the campaign, the university said, "We have had protests in the past and we've dealt with them. We are confident we can do the same again."