Posted on 08/27/2005 7:11:38 AM PDT by Graybeard58
OXFORD, England -- They firebombed an Oxford University boathouse, planted explosives beneath cars and appear to have stolen the remains of an 82-year-old woman.
Now animal rights activists are vowing to turn Oxford into a battleground in order to stop construction of a new biomedical research center -- and the university is promising it will be built.
Britain is facing increased pressure to deal with radical animal activists, who analysts say could cost the country billions of dollars a year in lost investment.
Activists claimed a victory this week when a family-run guinea pig farm in northwest England announced it would no longer breed animals for medical experiments -- and appealed for the return of the remains of the co-owner's mother-in-law, which they believe extremists stole from a churchyard grave in October.
Attention has now turned to a construction site on the edge of Oxford's science area, where animal rights activists have stalled a university project to build a new Biomedical Research center to replace aging laboratories.
Medical experiments on animals are to be conducted in the $32 million building as part of research into treatment for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
"Oxford is going to become a big battleground," said Mel Broughton, co-founder of Speak, the group leading the campaign against the facility. "The government has said they will draw the line in the sand over construction at Oxford. We've kept the same view, this is something we won't back down from."
Work on the building stopped in July 2004, when construction company Montpellier pulled out after shareholders received forged letters purportedly from the firm's chairman urging them to sell their shares to avoid reprisals from animal rights extremists.
The London-listed company's shares plummeted when shareholders received the letter.
Oxford has vowed that the facility will be completed, and the government has offered security assistance. But there has been no sign of when work will resume.
"The activists certainly seem to have the upper hand," said Simon Festing, director of the Research Defence Society, which represents doctors and scientists in the debate over animals' role in research.
Stapled to the trees along the road where the construction site is located are laminated copies of a November High Court injunction barring animal rights activists from intimidating or attacking students, staff and anyone involved in the construction. The order restricts protests to 50 people on a small area across the road from the building site on Thursdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
The government introduced new penalties this year for activists found guilty of targeting research centers, including five year jail sentences for causing "economic damage."
Animal extremism is also increasingly becoming a problem in the U.S. The FBI said in June that violence by environmental and animal rights extremists against U.S. drug makers has increased so much in recent years that it's currently the FBI's top domestic terrorism issue.
n the debate over animal testing, the government and scientists say Britain has the strictest animal welfare standards and that animals are only used in experiments when there is no alternative.
At a university boat house on the outskirts of town, workmen in white coveralls began clearing the melted and crumbling remnants of 24 rowing boats from the Hertford College boathouse on Wednesday.
The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the July 4 attack, which caused an estimated $900,000 in damage, saying the new biomedical building was the reason for the attack.
The militant attacks will force some companies to reassess the risks their U.K. employees face and lead them to consider moving to less hostile environments, such as Asia, according to a report by the London-based Aegis Security Services.
Companies relocating could cost Britain billion of dollars a year in lost investment, the report said. About $5.4 billion is invested annually in the U.K.'s biopharmaceutical industry, according to the Trade and Industry Department.
If you act like a terrorist you should be treated as one.
Britain probably has the world's longest history of animal-rights activism. H.G. Wells' novel The Island of Dr.Moreau was partially intended as an anti-vivisection tract.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
When the animal rights jihadists are killed in the cause, are they promised 72 donkeys?
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