Mixed Reaction to UK Efforts to Stop Extremists

The British government this month announced that it would seek to give police unprecedented powers to crack down on extremist animal rights activists who engage in acts of harassment and intimidation. At the same time, though, the Royal Society complained that the Home Office had ignored the concerns of universities in a report on modernizing the nation’s police resources.

The Labor party is proposing amending the Serious Organized Crime and Policing Bill to give police the power to crack down on animal rights harassment and intimidation. According to the Daily Telegraph,

The Bill will give police the power to remove and arrest activists who protest outside or near the homes of people who conduct research, or are linked to it, and their families. They could then be charged and face prison sentences.

An important aspect of the Bill is that officers will be able to arrest or remove people involved in intimidatory protests after the event, without having to catch them in the act. It will also allow officers to ban protesters from returning to the scene for three months.

On the other hand, the Royal Society complained that a recently completed Home Office study on modernizing the UK’s police force mentioned the need to protect scientists at commercial enterprises, but did not included assurance of protection for university researchers.

IC Staines quoted Barry Keverne, chairman of the Royal Society’s Committee on Animals in Research, as saying,

There are scientists in universities and other academic institutions throughout the UK carrying out fundamental research on animals which underpins every aspect of the work conducted by industry.

We raised concerns in July that the Home Office gave no explicit assurances that university scientists would be afforded the same protection from animal extremists as those working in business and industry. Worryingly, the Home Office’s latest consultation on modernizing the police has not sought to correct this glaring omission.

Scientists carrying out research on animals in universities suffer the same kind of harassment from animal extremists as those working in industry yet the Government appears not to recognize this.

The proposed change in handling intimidation and harassment by activists is a good sign, but the UK government still seems to be reacting to the activists in an extremely haphazard way. Certainly elements of the government, such as Patricia Hewitt and Caroline Flint, seem to grasp the danger posed by animal rights extremists, but that doesn’t seem to have translated into any sort of cohesive, coordinated plan for dealing with the problem.

Sources:

Scientists to be protected from animal activists. Toby Helm, Daily Telegraph, November 13, 2004.

Risk list ‘ignores universities’. IC Staines, November 15, 2004.

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