Huntingdon Life Sciences this week announced the resignations of board members John Caldwell and Kirby Cramer. Cramer had served as a non-executive director at HLS since 1996, and Cramer had been an executive director since 1998.
Both men were the targets of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty’s ongoing intimidation campaign agains anyone remotely affiliated with HLS. When Caldwell was named as the dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Liverpool, he found his new department stormed by anti-HLS activists. Similarly, Cramer served on a number of boards of other companies, and SHAC and others targeted those other companies in an attempt to convince Cramer to resign from the HLS board.
To replace the board members, HLS named international businessman Y Sesay and Pakistani businessman Mohammed Faruque.
Presumably HLS chose both men, at least in part, because their geographical locations will make it more difficult for Western animal rights activists to apply the sort of intimidation tactics they have used against British and American individuals affiliated with the firm.
This didn’t stop SHAC from issuing a press release listing phone numbers for Faruque along with a time zone chart giving the best times for activists to call Faruque. According to the SHAC press release,
It has also been reported that he [Faruque] has had a great deal of trepidation about joining the board concerning the animal rights threat he may face.
Sounds like he needs some convincing!
Sources:
Executives targeted by animal rights activists retire. Patrick Jenkins, Financial Times, January 15, 2003.
Two Huntingdon directors resign – new directors not secured!! Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, Press Release, January 15, 2003.