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UK Government acts against extremism
New legislation to be introduced in UK to control animal rights extremists.
The increasingly violent and intimidatory tactics used by animal rights extremists in the UK have forced the British government to take action to prevent companies and individuals from harassment. On July 30 the Prime Minister and Home Secretary jointly signed the foreword to a document "Animal Welfare – Human Rights: protecting people from animal rights extremists" setting out measures to outlaw a number of types of protest, including demonstrations outside the homes of scientists who experiment on animals and the harassment of anyone associated with their laboratories.
The programme was announced as a response to the news that direct action against the main building contractor for a new animal fascility at Oxford University had halted its construction. This follows on the successful campaign against a neuroscience laboratory at Cambridge University, which also saw work stop earlier in the year.
Scientists have been warning for years that such activities could hold back medical research in some fields, but recently they have been joined by major players from the pharmaceutical industry. Jean-Pierre Garnier, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, was recently reported as calling extremists "despicable cowards" and said that his employees were being "terrorised" by them. He said that attacks by animal rights extremists were driving away investment in pharmaceutical research and jobs to other countries, and that a number of GSK’s partners had pulled out of research work in the UK because of fears of violent attack.
All of this, plus the news that the US activist Jerry Vlasak, who has been quoted about the assassination of biomedical scientists to save animal lives, had been invited to an extremists ‘training camp’ in the UK in September, made it fairly certain that the government would have to announce some action.
Among the measures proposed are making it an offence to protest outside homes in such a way which causes harassment, alarm or distress to the residents. This will be an arrestable offence, even after the event – at the moment protestors can leave the scene and the police are not able to arrest them later.
It will also become an offence under the Protection from Harassment Act to harass as few as two people who are connected (e.g. who work in the same laboratory), even if each individual is only harassed on one occasion. Previously workers who had not been harassed themselves had no protection under the law, even if colleagues had been.
Another new offence would forbid those who had been ‘moved on’ from returning to outside a person’s house within three months "for the purpose of representing to or persuading the resident, or anyone else, that he should not do something he is entitled to do, or that he should do something he is not obliged to."
All three offences will come about by amending existing legislation, rather than by introducing a stand-alone law to deal with animal rights extremism, as many scientists had wanted. Although the government has not ruled this out entirely, it says "it would not be sensible to try to seek a separate bill which, because of pressures of parliamentary time, could not be taken this year".
But already civil liberties groups are lining up against the proposals, warning that they will criminalise legal protests, and even amending existing legislation may not be too quick or easy.
Scientists welcomed the plan, saying that the government was giving a clear signal of support for moving the issue up the police agenda. "This is the strongest statement to date, the most comprehensive statement they have made", said Mark Matfield of the Research Defence Society. "They’ve never put their vision on the line as clearly and firmly as this."
Universities remained concerned that the government document contained references to how the measures would affect business and industry but that universities were not specifically mentioned. Only two days previously the three pharmaceutical companies with the largest research operations in the UK had put up a £4m research fund to pay for animal experiments in academic institutions. "Being able to do this kind of research is key to our ability to deliver the best care to patients", said Gill Samuels, executive director of science for Pfizer.
The government document takes pains to spell out the medical benefits of animal research to both animals and humans. "Most of the major medical advances over the last century have come about through animal research, and all new medicines are approved on the basis that their efficacy, safety and quality have been demonstrated by evidence including animal test data………Research involving animals also benefits animals themselves. Currently, experimental research and drug testing on animal is needed to advance both human and veterinary