Bioethics of terrorism
Green Radicals: When the fight for animal rights turns into terrorThe material was prepared by the online editorial office of RIA Novosti on the basis of information from open sources
A hearing has begun in a British court on the case of animal rights activists who are accused of terrorizing a biomedical center for 6 years for experiments on animals. Among other things, the Greens are accused of spreading defamatory information to the company's employees and threatening to crack down on their families.
"Puppy Killers"It is known that five of the eight defendants are members of the well–known organization SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty - "Stop animal cruelty in Huntingdon"), more than once suspected of so-called ecoterrorism (environmental radicalism).
The Greens are accused of purposefully harassing employees of Britain's largest biomedical center Huntingdon Life Sciences and companies working with it. According to the prosecution, animal rights activists sent them threatening letters, fake bombs, used towels that allegedly had HIV on them.
In addition, the defendants are accused of damaging the cars of Huntingdon Life Sciences employees, sending letters to their neighbors informing them that they live next to pedophiles, as well as painting the walls and entrances of researchers' houses with inscriptions like "Puppy Killers". It is also assumed that as part of their "green" campaign, the extremists posted personal data of employees who worked with animals on the Internet.
The pursuers promised to leave their victims alone only if they refused to cooperate with Huntingdon Life Sciences. Otherwise, the "greens" threatened to kill the families of the addressees.
"Animal laboratories"Some organizations fighting for animal rights are not limited to simple protest actions and picketing of scientific laboratories.
Representatives of the extremist wing of the "greens" attack the homes of scientists, smash the offices of pharmaceutical companies, steal and release laboratory animals into the wild and pursue "knackers" even after death.
So, in 2001, the British police arrested more than 80 animal rights defenders who trashed the offices of Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline. These companies have also suffered at the hands of the SHAC organization for collaborating with the same Huntingdon Life Sciences center.
On that day, animal rights activists organized nine protests in the UK, which were attended by about a thousand people. However, according to the representative of SHAC, the destruction of the offices was not part of the organizers' plans.
Another "protected corner" of the British radical "greens" – Oxford University in the UK and its world–famous scientific laboratories - has also been the target of attacks for animal rights defenders in recent years.
After the activists of the Animal Liberation Front declared everyone connected with Oxford in one way or another as their enemies in early 2006, the university had to seek an injunction against the presence of animal defenders on its territory.
And in February 2007, animal rights activists of the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the attempted arson of the institution. An online message from animal advocates called the incident "part of an ongoing war with Oxford University and its tyrannical power over invisible victims being sacrificed in animal laboratories."
However, the "greens" are not only a problem for British universities. For example, the University of California at Los Angeles has repeatedly suffered from the measures of animal rights activists. The head of the university even called the actions of activists who smashed laboratories, published personal data of researchers, pasted offensive leaflets in the quarters where scientists live, "internal terrorism".
In 2006, the aggressive actions of activists against Professor of neuroscience Dario Ringach and his family members forced him to abandon his research. Extremists constantly, day and night, called the scientist by phone, staged noisy demonstrations in front of his laboratory and at his house.
And at the home of another researcher from the University of California – Lynn Fairbanks – unknown people left a homemade bomb. Fortunately, the fuse burned out, but the bomb did not explode.
"Now they will see the sun"A more harmless way of "green" radicals is stealing and freeing animals.
For example, in 2005, Spanish animal defenders released 30 thousand minks from one of the fur farms in the north-west of Spain. A year later, more than 15 thousand minks were released. The "fighters" entered the farms at night on a day off, set up boards to the walls to help the minks get over the fences, and lured them out with fish.
In 2004, Russian activists of the Animal Liberation Front infiltrated the laboratory of the Anokhin Institute of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and took with them 119 frogs along with caviar. They left inscriptions on the walls: "We have freed these animals! Now they will see the sun!", "There is no excuse for vivisection!", "No – animal experiments!", etc. All the frogs were released into the swamp outside the city, and the eggs were placed nearby.
In the same year, the Russian Front support group released 94 white rats from the vivarium of the MSU biofactory and released 110 rats and 5 rabbits from another laboratory of the University's Faculty of Biology.
Some extremist "greens" behave even more harshly. In 2007, a group of animal rights activists "Unknown Badgers" (Badgers Unknown) published on their website the addresses and phone numbers of celebrities whom they accused of being addicted to hunting, fishing or weapons.
Sting, Jeremy Irons, Roger Daltrey, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Billy Connolly, and others were among those people whom activists called nothing but "depraved perverts" and "walking advertisements for eugenics."
Animal advocates emphasized that most of these people live in houses that are easy to set on fire, and advised them to do just that. In addition, they stressed that none of the listed "is immortal."
A completely shocking case occurred in the UK in 2004, when police in Staffordshire arrested 62-year-old Janet Tomlinson. She was accused of involvement in the disappearance of the body of an 82-year-old Englishwoman from the grave. The deceased was the mother-in-law of the owner of a farm where guinea pigs are bred.
Tomlinson has been organizing protests for five years, demanding that the farm be closed, since pigs are used for experiments for medical purposes. Unable to achieve her immediate goal, the elderly animal defender decided to "take revenge" on the late mother-in-law of the owner of the farm.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru09.10.2008