About 30 animal rights activists associated with a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania group called Hugs for Puppies demonstrated outside the home of GlaxoSmithKline chief executive officer Jean-Pierre Garnier. Garnier was out of town at the time.
According to the London Telegraph, about 30 protesters chanted and marched on the street outside Garnier’s home while police looked on.
Organizer Alexandra Deyo told The Telegraph that the protest was a response to Garnier’s recent characterization of activists as cowards. Deyo said,
He’s only been speaking to the British media against animal rights groups and has been speaking like he’s a victim when he actually lives in the US.
Deyo is apparently referring to a July interview that Garnier gave to the Telegraph in which he said,
I take it [animal rights violence] extremely personally. When your general counsel has to go into hiding in some apartment and has to move out of his house with his young children because he has been threatened, you do take that personally.
Apparently empathy for other people is an alien emotion to activists like Deyo.
Deyo, by the way, is one of the activist who was arrested in June and charged with criminal conspiracy, harassment, disorderly conduct and child endangerment in connection with a protest she organized that targeted an executive with Johnson Matthey Pharmaceutical Materials.
Source:
Animal rights stand-off at Garnier home. Dominic White, The Telegraph (London), August 23, 2004.