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Following raids on various organisations in Austria activists were imprisoned.  One of them, Martin Balluch from VGT (an organisation against animal factories, which has successfully campaigned to close fur farms and stop battery egg production in Austria and was in negotiations to get animal rights into the Austrian Constitution) was on hunger strike for part of his remand.

Statement from Martin Balluch after his release

This has been slightly edited for length by me.  “It's now been a week since I was released from prison.  104 days in a prison cell are over!  It is seriously shocking to see how far police repression will be taken in order to stop legitimate and successful protest for animals in the name of a majority of the population, just because it runs contrary to the profit interests of a powerful minority. Many, many thanks to each and every one of you for all you have done for me. I am deeply humbled by the immense amount of solidarity and support we prisoners have received from the international animal rights community. I was released without the keys to my home, my car or my office being returned to me.  I was not given my computer either, access to my bank account, nor even my wristwatch!  If it had not been for friendly folk supporting me, I would have had to sleep rough this last week, without any money.  Our office and the offices of 6 other animal rights groups are still empty.  Nothing has been handed back so far, no video material or photo cameras, no computers, no membership data, no photo or film archives and no accounts books.  The intention is obvious:  as we had to be released from prison, depriving us of any material is the next move to silence VGT and prevent us from being effectively active.  {VGT has been successful in getting the production of battery eggs and fur farming banned in Austria.  They were on course to getting animal rights written into the Austrian constitution}. “At the end of 2006 the owners of Kleider Bauer (fur business) and representatives of the Conservatives as well as high ranking police officers met and spoke about how to destroy VGT.  The minutes of those meetings are now in our hands and make for gruesome reading.  They say that there is no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing and that banning our demos cannot be upheld, so a special police unit consisting of more than 32 agents from the Secret Service, the murder division and the anti-terror police locally and nationally was formed with the sole purpose of framing us. This special unit started the largest operation of spying on political activists ever conducted since World War II.  For almost 2 years 2 private houses, a pub used as a meeting place and the VGT office were bugged.  The telephone and the e-mail conversations of more than 30 people were monitored.  2 cars, including mine, had tracking devices put on them.  17 people were followed and watched 24 hours a day.  3 private homes had video cameras filming their entrances.  And undercover agents infiltrated VGT.  Furthermore, more than a dozen potential targets of animal rights activists were under permanent surveillance. To justify this operation the Secret Service drew up a list of 240 acts of criminal damage and arson (including ripping up illegal circus posters) from the last 13 years that could have had something to do with animal rights and claimed that one big international criminal organization was responsible for all of them.  In order to inflate the damage, a number of cases of accidental fire were presented as animal-rights-related arson, and one butyric acid attack on a Kleider Bauer shop was inflated to damage of 500,000 euro, which later led to civil-law suits because the insurance company made it clear that this figure was about 50 times too high.  Most likely that was another dirty trick out of the hat of the Secret Service, to inflate the damage out of proportion in order to be able to justify a violent police attack later on. By May 2008 this huge surveillance operation had not come up with any hint of any criminal activity so the Ministry of the Interior intensified the police terror.  Doors were smashed open and masked officers surrounded people in their beds, pointing guns at their heads and going on to turn the places upside down.  As the law against criminal organisations, which was used in this case to justify the operation, states that at least 10 members are necessary to make the law applicable, exactly 10 people were put on remand whilst almost 40 were arrested and questioned for up to 10 hours. As police and public prosecution had absolutely no evidence against any of us, they spoke to media as well as the judges responsible for extending the incarceration and claimed that they had a huge amount of evidence but that it had to be kept secret since the operation and investigations were ongoing…… But police and state prosecution lost the media battle for public sympathy. An unprecedented wave of international protests in front of Austrian embassies in countless countries shamed the Austrian government.  Throughout the whole 104 days of incarceration daily demos were held outside the prisons and additional vigils and protests took place, including large protest marches drawing in 800 participants.  The Green Party and the Social Democrats criticised the police actions with increasing impatience.  A huge number of protest letters were sent to the Ministry of Justice as well as to other politicians, heads of state and newspapers.  Eventually the Green Party decided to nominate me as a candidate for the next Parliamentary elections. The case of whether the remand imprisonment was legal is still pending at the Supreme Court.  A decision is expected within the next 4 weeks.  The release was justified by saying that the time already spent in prison was out of proportion with the prison sentences expected if a guilty verdict were reached. A weird move to save face!  Instead of saying truthfully that there was no evidence, the reference to an expected sentence was used, although the charge of criminal organisation carries a maximum sentence of 5 years – and arson 10 years. The case is not over yet though….  In order to safeguard animal-rights activism and, more generally, political activism in Austria, 3 things must be achieved.  1) Those responsible for this police terror must be brought to account for what they did.  2) The damage inflicted must be fully compensated for.  3) Law §278a must be revoked. Exactly 40 years ago the tanks of the then Soviet Union broke into the Czechoslovakian Republic to destroy with violence the 'Prague Spring', the new socialist system with a humane attitude.  Dissidents were locked up and the tiny seedlings of a new society were violently uprooted.  This attack on basic rights has been justly criticised all over the globe.  Western democracies boast of being so different and defending liberal principles but our case proves them wrong.  Dissident animal-rights thinking was infiltrating ever more areas of society.  And the tanks of a 'democratic' system smashed it all up and locked up the most active critical thinkers. Yes, we have the right to free speech and to protest and to associate freely.  But those freedoms end when they are used effectively to change society.  You are allowed to express your opinion - as long as not enough people listen and act accordingly.  You are allowed to protest - as long as profits are not touched by it.  And you are allowed to associate freely – as long as you only debate and do not influence society significantly by action.  Austria has a relatively low level of animal rights related criminal activity but a very high level of animal-rights-related successes. And Austria has seen the largest and most violent police operation ever conducted against animal rights anywhere and at any time in the world.  Is it not obvious that there is a direct connection?..... Police violence has had the opposite effect on our movement to what was intended.  We now have more activists than ever before.  The animal-rights movement is being taken seriously as a new social movement. It is being talked about everywhere and the public sympathizes ever more with us.  Since being released from prison I have been approached countless times on the streets by strangers who congratulated me and wished me luck, and many even put money into my hands.  People I mostly don’t know bought me a new computer, a watch, a mobile phone and a bike and even offered me a new flat to live in for a while.  The bike shop gave me a 100-Euro bike lock in solidarity. The movement stood up in solidarity behind us prisoners.  Now as a movement we are more united and willing to cooperate than ever before.  And events prove beyond any doubt that our approach to achieving animal rights in the long run is effective…..  This year our campaigns may have suffered a drawback, but when the case is won we will push on with more energy than ever before.  I am determined to see this through and am looking forward to new advances towards animal rights in the years ahead.” Since this was written there have been more police raids on animal rights people in Austria

Palin uses oil money to oppose polar bear protection

The Republican Sarah Palin and her officials in the Alaskan state government drew on the work of at least 6 scientists known to be sceptical about the dangers and causes of global warming, to back efforts to stop polar bears being protected as an endangered species. Some of the scientists were funded by the oil industry. One paper was partly funded by the US oil company ExxonMobil. In May the US department of the interior rejected Palin's objections and listed the bear as a threatened species, saying that 2/3 of the world's polar bears were likely to be extinct by 2050 due to the rapid melting of the sea ice. Palin, governor of Alaska and the Republican nominee for US vice-president, responded by suing the federal government, to try to overturn the ruling. The case will be heard in January. Though the state of Alaska has no polar bear specialists on its staff, the governor's stance has pitted it against the combined scientific fire-power of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Geological Survey, and world experts on the mammal. In its lawsuit, Alaska said it opposed the endangered label partly because the listing would "deter activities such as ... oil and gas exploration and development". Oil companies recently bid $2.7bn (£1.5bn) for rights to explore the Chuckchi sea, an established polar bear habitat. The threatened species status might also impede the building of an Alaskan natural gas pipeline, which Palin has called the "will of God". In a letter last year to the US interior secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, she said she believed the polar bear population was "abundant, stable and unthreatened by direct human activity". She opposed the call for the listing because it "did not use the best available scientific and commercial information". Last month Palin agreed that the Alaskan climate was changing but added: "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made." She later tried to retract the statement. Edited from The Guardian 1st Oct

 

Animal killer Palin’s speech writer

Matthew Scully wrote a book 5 years ago called Dominion: The power of man, the suffering of animals, and the call to mercy. A former editor for The National Review, he wrote Dominion in the middle of a 5-year stint as George W. Bush’s speechwriter. He also put words in the mouths of Dick Cheney, Bob Dole and Dan Quayle. It’s ironic enough, then, that Scully wrote speeches for Cheney, whose hunting prowess became legendary in 2006 when he shot his 75-year-old friend, Texas attorney Harry Whittington, in the face while indulging in the sort of “canned” hunting that Scully derided in his book. But Palin makes Cheney look like an amateur when it comes to indifference to the suffering of non-humans. And yet Scully returned to right-wing speechwriting to craft her trite, childish monologue and give his conscience a thorough gutting. Maybe the money was just too tempting.

Brigitte Bardot has taken a swipe at Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate in the US elections.  Palin, a committed hunter, is well known for her love of killing animals, including the shooting of wolves in Alaska. Bardot called her a disgrace to women and in a final salvo she picked up on Palin's depiction of herself as a pitbull wearing lipstick and said she "implored" her not to compare herself to dogs. "I know them well and I can assure you that no pitbull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are," Bardot wrote.

Circus Protests

Jolly’s Circus - On Sat 4th Oct  there were only 2 women protesters at Jolly’s Circus in Penkridge Staffs.  The circus mob (8 of them) chased and threatened them.  Fortunately a local person came to the rescue.  The huge protest placards and accompanying 'bungies' and stand were stolen by the mob.  Nevertheless the Pussies Printing Press went into action immediately and on Sunday we were back out there, along with the 2 victims.  Jolly's are an evil bunch.  They have llamas, zebras, camels, horses, fox, bull etc.  In the past couple of months they have assaulted 2 young protesters, threatened others and were found to be performing without a license. They were subsequently stopped when the council's licensing dept were informed!!

Duffy’s Circus - Animal Rights Action Network took our nationwide campaign, 'Stop Circus Suffering in Ireland' to Cork city to expose circus goers to animal suffering in travelling Irish circuses. Our stop today, 8th Sept, was outside Duffy's circus where our supporters staged a peaceful protest whilst distributing educational leaflets to passing members of the public and people going to see the circus. The response was fantastic, many people stopped to ask questions, take leaflets and others took the leaflets but still went into the circus - however we are confident judging by feedback from ex-circus goers that many of these people will never return to circuses using animals again. We've taken some nice footage here www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9zsQqgSwRQ  for you to see, enjoy!

Great European Circus - On the evening of 17th Sept, a member of the National Animal Rights Association was assaulted and threatened while peacefully leafleting outside the Great European Circus (which is also known as the Royal Russian Circus), where they are currently staying on the Trim Road in Navan, Co Meath. "Shortly after arriving, the 17 year old activist was greeted with verbal abuse by members of the circus" says Laura Broxson, spokesperson of N.A.R.A. "A man from the circus then came out and grabbed his arm, held it behind his back, and proceeded to shove him onto the road" "The activist was then told that they would 'kill him if he ever came back' This circus has been investigated by both CAPS (www.irishcircuses.org)  and PETA (for info on previous cruelty convictions and abuse see: http://www.circuses.com/fact-great.asp).

The RSPCA & Dogs’ Trust are withdrawing from Crufts dog show amid concerns about the health of pedigree animals. The RSPCA is to scrap its regular welfare stand at the contest next March. The charity says "morally unjustifiable" breeding practices lead to disability, deformity and disease among show dogs. RSPCA chief veterinary adviser Mark Evans has called for a shift in emphasis away from the looks of dogs and towards their health, welfare and temperament. He said judging criteria used by shows such as Crufts encouraged inbreeding and the rearing of deformed dogs, as demonstrated by BBC documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed. In the past the charity, which is also pulling out of the Discover Dogs show in November, has staffed a stand at Crufts to promote general animal welfare.  The Kennel Club has lodged a complaint with the BBC accusing them of selective editing but the BBC stand by their broadcast.

A review of breeding standards for every pedigree dog species in Britain is now under way by the Kennel Club in an attempt to introduce kinder rearing for pets and showdogs. Incestuous inbreeding of dogs – sons with their mothers and half siblings with each other – is also to be tackled. New rules, covering 209 breeds, are to be in place by the end of the year and will be used to judge dogs competing in next year’s Crufts, the biggest dog show in the world, which is organised by the Kennel Club.

 

ESCADA Campaign

 

STOP THE BLOODY FUR TRADE

 

 

Fur demo

About 400 anti-fur campaigners marched in protest against some of the UK's highest-profile stores. The London march started in Belgrave Square,
Westminster with a speech from Green Party deputy leader Adrian Ramsay, a Norwich councillor. The long march passed designer outlets including Gucci, Prada, Versace, Armani and Burberry. Outside Harrods, the only department store left in the UK that sells real fur, there was a short silence to reflect on the animals used for their fur before chanting broke out. Police lined both sides of the march but we still managed to hand out leaflets to the public, who came over to take them.

Last year, Giorgio Armani told Time magazine, "I spoke with the people from PETA, and they showed me some materials that convinced me not to use fur". Armani was then added to our list of fur-free designers, which includes Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Kenneth Cole and Stella McCartney, just to name a few. Armani has gone back on his word. His latest collections include fur-trimmed jackets, fur-hemmed skirts, floral-print fur coats and even fur-trimmed snowsuits for babies. Armani has an odd obsession with rabbit fur, and several weeks ago, he refused to meet with PETA US Senior Vice President Dan Mathews in Milan to view disturbing undercover video footage of rabbit fur farms. You can send a message to Armani via the PETA website.

 

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.   No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man,"  Albert Einstein  If humans disappeared off the face of the planet it would do it a favour

Dog & Cat Fur - An EU-wide ban on the trade in cat and dog fur will come into effect on 31 December 2008. 

There are 4 circuses touring Britain with wild animals.  They are: The Great British Circus - 1 kangaroo, 2 llamas, 4 reindeer, 5 lions, 7 tigers, 7 camels, 1 zebra. Bobby Roberts Super Circus - 1 elephant (touring but retired from performance), 1 camel. Circus Mondao - 3 zebras, 2 llamas, 2 camels. Jolly's Circus - 2 crocodiles, 1 zebra, 1 ankole (a form of African cattle), 1 llama, 6 snakes.

Advocates for Animals is calling for Scotland to lead the way with a ban on the use of animals in travelling circuses, following the Report of the Chairman of the UK Government’s Circus Working Group released today.  The Report concluded, “science, on this occasion, provides no relevant guidance” and the matter is “an entirely political decision”.

Chimps beat students in memory tests

Chimpanzees have an extraordinary photographic memory that is far superior to ours, research suggests. Young chimps outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese scientists. The tasks involved remembering the location of numbers on a screen, and correctly recalling the sequence. The findings, published in Current Biology, suggest we may have under-estimated the intelligence of our closest living relatives. Until now, it had always been assumed that chimps could not match humans in memory and other mental skills. "There are still many people, including many biologists, who believe that humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said lead researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University. "No one can imagine that chimpanzees - young chimpanzees at the age of 5 - have a better performance in a memory task than humans. Chimps performed much better than university students in speed and accuracy when the numbers appeared only briefly on screen. The shortest time duration, 210 milliseconds, did not leave enough time for the subjects to explore the screen by eye movement - something we do all the time when we read. This is evidence, the researchers believe, that young chimps have a photographic memory which allows them to memorise a complex scene or pattern at a glance. This is sometimes present in human children but declines with age, they say.

Netcu Watch

The website dedicated to keeping an eye on the New Labour built National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit was extensively updated on 7th Nov. In this update NW reports on the widening scope of NETCU which is now going well beyond just harassing peaceful animal rights campaigners and moving into the realms of harassing those that are solely dedicated to saving us all from extinction. Also re-prints of many recent mainstream media articles which have documented the massive attack on our civil liberties by psychotic madman Blair and his new Labour party as well as the usual NW reports of severe abuse of police power when dealing with dissent in the UK and much more. Be sure to bookmark or link to http://www.vivisection.info/netcu_watch  

'Music United For Animals'

'Music United For Animals' is a CD of animal welfare/animal rights songs.  The track list includes 'Your meat is our Murder' a song to expose the misery of the factory farming trade. Here is the song link - http://www.maria-daines.com/music-32.html  Other songs on the album highlight the issue of stray dogs in Romania, vivisection, fur trade, bear bile farming, the use of animals in the circus, puppy mill breeding factories, horse slaughter and the annual killing of seal pups. All songs and info can be found here - http://www.maria-daines.com/bio.html  The journey to make a collection of songs as a voice for animals in distress has been emotional, exciting, hard work, rewarding, and a real eye-opener. We are available to promote this album in the coming weeks, please contact us if you would like a copy of the cd or an interview.  All proceeds of the album will benefit grass roots rescue organisations and animal shelters. Thank you, best wishes, from Maria Daines & Paul Killington. Our website - http://www.maria-daines.com  http://www.myspace.com/musicunitedforanimals

 


 



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The Shoreham Protester, 7 Stoneham Road, Hove, BN3 5HJ, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0)1273 885750. Email: shoreham.protester@ntlworld.com

Last Updated 19 October 2008