Tag: Animal Liberation Front

ALF activists poison food in Italy

The Animal Liberation Front tried to disrupt Christmas celebrations in Italy by threatening to contaminate
panettone, a traditional Italian Christmas cake, with racumin, a rat poison.
The ALF sent samples of two Nestle brand panettone contaminated with the
poison to an Italian news agency.

In response, Nestle shut down
the plant that produced the panettone and most supermarkets took the Nestle
product off their shelves.

And what message was the ALF
trying to send? It wants Nestle to abandon efforts to use genetically modified wheat in products sold in Italy. Apparently the ALF is trying to branch
out into liberating wheat.

Source:

Panettone panic. The BBC, December 13, 1998.

Nestle shuts plant after Animal Liberation Front poisons cakes. Bloomburg News, December 12, 1998.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Following the passage of Arizona’s
ban on cockfighting, an unidentified group is circulating a press release
claiming that those in favor of cockfighting are using the Internet to
harass and target animal rights activists who supported the measure.

“Taking a page from the anti-abortion
movement’s book on terrorism, Arizona cockfighters have posted a
list of animal activists’ names at a website on the Internet,”
the press release claims.

Antiabortion terrorism? Try animal
rights terrorism. Assuming the press release is accurate, these people
are doing to animal rights activists exactly what the activists have been
doing to medical researchers, fur farmers and others for years. Animal
rights activists regularly post to the Internet the names and phone numbers
of medical researchers, journalists who write disapproving articles, fur
farmers and others.

This is what happens when social
movements self-righteously believe they are so obviously correct that
they may break the law with impunity and attack indiscriminately both
persons and property who get in their way. Officials with animal rights
organizations such People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issue fawning
press releases and articles defending the activities of groups such as
the Animal Liberation Front, but animal rights activists are the first
ones to cry foul when their tactics are turned back on them.

Not that I support taking direct
action against animal rights activists. As I have said before, the main
thing that such direct action does is discredit animal rights activists
in the eyes of most Americans. The reaction to the recent destruction
of more than $12 million in property at Vail proved that point. Even those
local environmentalist and activists who opposed the new Vail development
condemned the action and the attack did more than anything to unite that
community behind the ski resort. Engaging in direct action against animal
rights activists only risks giving them sympathy on a potentially national
stage that they simply don’t deserve.

Source:

Cockfighters use Internet to target animal activists. Citizens Again Cockfighting, Press Release, November 6, 1998.

Justice Department issues warning

A communiqué signed only by “the
Justice Department” shows what happens when movements such as animal
rights begin providing a safe haven for people bent on violence. The release
promised retaliation against any animal rights activists who provides
information on terrorist acts committed by activists. Claiming that “our
movement is currently under threat from infiltrators, informers, and violent
animal abusers,” the communiqué warns. “Former ALF activists
have been suspected of feeding information into federal agents … this
will not be tolerated.”

Citing rumors that Josh Ellerman and Colby Ellerman supplied federal authorities with detailed information about
Animal Liberation Front activities, the communiqué warns, “they [animal rights
informants] will not rest in peace once released. We will be on the other
side of the fence waiting and we will find them wherever they hide …
The ALF have a clear policy of adherence to non-violence. We do not.”

I thought it was only hunters and
meat eaters who resorted to violence?

So much for animal rights' activists commitment to free speech

A few weeks ago, Internet search
engine Lycos pulled its financial support of animal rights web provider
|Envirolink.Org| after a story about some of the extremist sites on Envirolink,
such as the Animal Liberation Front Information Site, circulated on the
web. Since then animal rights activists have been screaming up and down
that this is censorship, even though what happened was no different than
the results of animal rights activists’ own boycott activities — Lycos
decided to stop supporting speech it that its customers disagreed with.

This week the Animal Liberation
Front revealed just how committed it is to freedom of speech when it announced
the creation of an “Internet Division.” In a Sept. 21, 1998
release, ALF announced it would begin hacking web sites, sending mail
bombs, launching viruses, initiating denial of service attacks and other
unsavory methods to bring down the web sites and Internet access of those
with whom it disagrees.

In its release, ALF said,

In this day and age when most large animal abuse establishments have
a presence on the Internet they see the world wide web for selling their
blood products and for pushing their warped ideals to the masses. As
other warriors free animals from concentration camp [sic] around the
world, we will take the war to the Internet.

What’s next for these people, public book burnings of medical textbooks?

Source:

“Animal Liberation Front Announces New Strategy: Internet Division,”
North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, Sept. 21, 1998.

More animal rights indictments

Two men who allegedly freed thousands
of mink from facilities in Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota last year
were recently indicted on charges of committing animal enterprise terrorism
and unlawful interference with interstate commerce.

Peter Young, 20, of Mercer Island,
Wash., and Justin Samuel, 19, of Snohomish, Wash., were charged with
six counts arising from an alleged cross country spree of “animal
liberation.”

The two were stopped by police
on Oct. 28, 1997 after fur farms in Wisconsin noticed the two acting
suspiciously and tipped of police. A search of their car turned up a list
of mink farms compiled by the Animal Liberation Front.

If convicted, Young and Samuel
could face up to 82 years in jail. Both men are still at large.

Source:

“Two men accused of freeing mink on farms in three states,” Kevin
Murphy, Washington Journal Sentinel, September 23, 1998.

More mink released in the UK

About two months ago Animal Liberation Front activists released 7,000 mink from a farm in Hampshire, England.
Recently activists released another 2,000 Mink from a farm in Onneley.

What have the results of this act
of “liberation” been? Mostly a lot of dead mink and other animals.
The mink have terrorized local wildlife, attacking pets and small farm
animals. A group of mink even attacked a local fisherman who happened
to be using dog food as bait.

The local media hasn’t been fooled
by the supposedly “compassionate” animal rights activists. As
a Daily Telegraph editorial summed it up,

The sort of people who released these mink have no attachment to animals.
Some rally to this bogus cause because it offers a license to destroy
other people’s property … in other moods this is a movement that will
make war on farmers who keep livestock and set fire to butchers’ shops
… Like much else done in the name of “animal rights,” it
amounts to mindless criminal activity that serves no cause whatever.
Its only consequence has been to destroy wildlife and expose the pretensions
of those who claim to be defending animals.

I don’t think I could have said it any better.

Sources:

Showdown on the
farm. Richard Askwith, The Independent, Sept. 5, 1998.

The
mink are back … and this time they’re angry. Science.

“Animal
rights and wrongs,” The Daily Telegraph, Sept. 18, 1998.