With all of the attention on Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty’s campaign of harassment against Huntingdon Life Sciences receives, sometimes the nastiness carried out by Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs against the owners of the Newchurch Guinea Pig Farm.
David Hall and family own the farm and raise guinea pigs that are used in medical research. Like HLS, activist opposed to the Halls target associates with threats and harassment in order to attempt to isolate the Halls. As with HLS, this tactic has proven quite effective.
As has been discussed on this site, SHAC often reaches for tangential targets such as companies that provide janitorial services for HLS, but SNGP carries this even further by targeting small-scale shops that the Halls might patronize.
For example, here’s a typical success trumpeted by the SNGP site: the SNGP asked activist to mail, e-mail and telephone The Red Lion — a pub frequented by members of the family. And sure enough, on February 26 the SNGP site published the following letter from the corporate owner of The Red Lion,
Dear Mr. Hall,
.
In the last ten days we have become a target of increased disturbance and threats (relating) to your use of the Red Lion, Newborough, a pub owned by our Company and operated by a tenant.
Whilst we are not in any way condoning the actions, as a responsible business we must take into consideration the safety and well being of our own staff, customers and the staff of our suppliers. To this end we feel we must ask you and your family to cease using The Red Lion, Newborough, with immediate effect. Whilst this situation is regrettable for all concerned we believe this is the most practical solution. We are sure you would not like any of our staff or customers or indeed yourselves to come to any harm as a result of your continued patronage of the Red Lion.
We are sure you will appreciate and respect our position.
Yours sincerely,
Leslie Porter
Secretary
For and on behalf of The Union Pub Company a trading division of
The Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries, PLC R
And still the British government seems unable or unwilling to crack down on such blatant acts of harassment.
Source:
The Halls Are Banned Yet Again! Press Release, Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs, February 26, 2004.