[GJM] Peaceful Animal Rights Protesters Imprisoned - and Anti-pope activists given legal right to protest

[ecotort at gn.apc.org]

With regard to the Animal Rights activists facing prison sentences for 
"peacefully annoying" the management and shareholders of Huntingdon Life 
Sciences, we must exercise our democratic "Duty (of Care) to be 
offensive" to pressurise the British legal fraternity to similarly 
strike down the legislation our government intends to use against 
peaceful protest as similarly "unconstitutional because it confers 
"powers that are repugnant to fundamental rights and freedoms at common 
law <http://www.ecotort.gn.apc.org>".  (see below for the case in point!)


> *It's your democratic duty to be offensive
> Germaine Greer
> *
> Last Thursday, the Federal Court of Australia did something positively 
> British. It ruled that a law passed by the New South Wales state 
> legislature, making it an offence to 'annoy' any of the Catholics who 
> would be attending the World Youth Festival in Sydney, was 
> unconstitutional because it conferred 'powers that are repugnant to 
> fundamental rights and freedoms at common law in the absence of clear 
> authority from Parliament'. The case against the NSW state legislature 
> was brought by two members of the No to Pope Coalition, university 
> students Rachel Evans and Amber Pike. If they hadn't taken this 
> initiative, the NSW legislators might have got away with it.

THE CASE IN POINT:
> Britain's longest running animal rights trial is nearing its end after 
> 18 weeks. The result has serious implications for civil liberties. As 
> we reported back in SchNEWS 616 
> <http://sequani.wordpress.com/wp-admin/news616.htm> seven defendants 
> were _*on trial under the new SOCPA Laws*_ for campaigning against 
> Ledbury animal testing laboratory Sequani. As of going to press one 
> man, Sean Kirtley has received a guilty verdict while three others 
> were acquitted and two are still awaiting a verdict. (One pleaded 
> guilty early in proceedings in attempt to strike a bargain). Sean has 
> now been remanded to HMP Winson Green in Birmingham.

The seven were initially arrested two years ago in Operation Tornado, 
which has ended up costing £4m (2% of the entire police budget for West 
Mercia for that year). Police seized computers, phones, personal mail 
and clothing from houses and workplaces They even seized a packet of Rizla!

*_/The case taken out under section 145 of SOCPA, which makes it illegal 
to "Interference with contractual relationships so as to harm an animal 
research organisation"./_**_/ /_*
The interesting twist is that instead of a straightforward charge the 
activists were charged with conspiracy, which not only carries a heavier 
sentence but allows a much broader range of evidence in.1000s of hours 
of video footage and a detailed analysis of mobile phone records was 
used to try and build a picture of a hierarchy within the campaign. 
Based on records of who called who and when police tried to build a 
picture of how the campaign was structured. Defendants were asked to 
provide reasons for virtually every phone call they'd made to each 
other. One supporter told us “/They've built a ludicrously skewed 
picture on what were effectively phone calls between a group of friends" 
they were desperate to place Sean as the leader "he's no such thing/".

There was no evidence of intimidation or harassment or section 5 style 
offences by Sean Kirtley although he has now been found guilty as he was 
seen as the organiser of most of the demonstrations and was considered 
by police to be “number 1". The main plank of the evidence was that 
forensics from his home computer showed that he had updated the campaign 
website.

Despite being a keen fox hunter and paid up member of pro-shooting 
lobby-group BASC, Judge Ross refused to step down. His involvement in 
the killing of animals and obvious opposition to the idea of animal 
welfare (never mind animal rights) would have on many levels affected 
his judgement. The trial went ahead under a fearsome set of reporting 
restrictions. The jury were bussed in on a daily basis and told that 
they could be a target for animal rights extremists. At the same time in 
the same building murder trial witnesses and jury members had to make 
their own way into the court.

People were frisked as they entered the public gallery and some were 
ejected for wearing “animal rights" clothing "even down to a shirt which 
read “Vegan". One campaigner told us /*“Human rights organisation 
Liberty were hassled constantly by ourselves and other activists to get 
them to shed light on what we could see would be a time bomb  for 
movements other than our own. They told us they were too busy".*/

Our court correspondent told us “So to sum up, Sean Kirtley is in prison 
and facing a possible 5 year sentence for holding placards, attending 
demonstrations just because people phoned him and said, “shall we go and 
demo Sequani this weekend". He was not the organiser but it was far too 
much of an efficient campaign to go unnoticed by those who stand to 
profit from vivisection. The campaign is not over, a change of tactics 
is being strongly discussed within our group and we plan on taking the 
fight to new levels over the coming months.


Finally, here is an idea about "animal rights and TORT law" from the 
ecotort brain-cell...

1. reasonable prudent, and well-intentioned behaviour is not criminal 
(see http://www.ecotort.gn.apc <http://www.ecotort.gn.apc.org>.org 
<http://www.ecotort.gn.apc.org> for absolute proof of this)
2. any person is allowed to use "reasonable force" (the same as a police 
officer) to prevent a crime, or the "reasonably foreseeable likelihood" 
of a crime, from being committed.
3. "a crime is committed when a person does something knowingly, which 
is reasonably foreseeable as likely to injure another person" (btw. in 
law, a company is a person).
4. we need to show that animal rights activists are using "reasonable 
force" to prevent what is reasonably perceived as a crime.
5. I understand that in general, the results of vivisection and animal 
testing are highly unreliable because different animals have quite 
different physiologies compared with humans, hence testing on animals 
does not give reliable information as to safety for humans  (??? e.g.. 
was thalidomide tested on animals ???).
6. if this is so, then unreliable testing of "potentially highly 
dangerous substances" on animals is certainly "reasonably foreseeable as 
likely to cause horrific injury" to the  human recipients of those 
potentially highly dangerous substances.
7. therefore using such unreliable results knowingly is reckless and 
criminal.
8. to peacefully demonstrate while trying to prevent such potentially 
horrific injury (as was caused for instance by thalidomide...) could 
only be seen as reasonable, prudent, and well-intentioned, and therefore 
as "not criminal in any shape or form" (again, see 
http://www.ecotort.gn.apc <http://www.ecotort.gn.apc.org>.org 
<http://www.ecotort.gn.apc.org> for proof that reasonable, prudent, and 
well-intentioned behaviour is not criminal).


When it comes to vivisection (animal 'testing'), it is definitely 
unscientific and completely dangerous to us. Thalidomide WAS in fact 
tested on animals, as was Vioxx 
(http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/merck-pays-5-bi.html).

A brilliant website showing 101 reasons why vivisection does not work
http://www.iaapea.com/101.php

 Why Chemotherapy is poison & natural cures are best
http://www.naturalnews.com:80/023626.html
 
Vaccinations are of course also fraudulent, this tells you why you must 
never vaccinate 
http://www.livway.org/variolaevaccinae.htm
 
This news clipping is a few years old, the figures are probably double 
those quoted now!

There are many reasons animal abuse must be stopped....
http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/NR/rdonlyres/E4B3303E-AF48-4DCC-98D1-A31347E96721/8718/GaertnerAnimalAbuseViolence.pdf
 
This shows that protests do make an impact, especially when it makes 
vivisection 'leaders' such as Colin Blakemore think about what he's 
doing! 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/31/anecessaryevil (the 
word 'evil' stands out here!)
 
There are many people in prison because they dared to hold a banner, 
give out leaflets or chant/shout their feelings during protest, purely 
because they want all the horror/crimes against innocent animals/people 
to stop! The only reason vivisection continues is money, pure & simple 
and in the meantime thousands upon thousands of animals will be 
tortured, murdered daily & people will continue to suffer and die 
horribly too!




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