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Bombing threat continues
8:55am Tuesday 23rd January 2007
By The Page Turner »
Letter bomb attacks like the one which injured a woman at an Abingdon firm could continue, according to an Oxford-based animal rights group.
The woman was hurt when the device exploded on Thursday as she opened mail at Orchid Cellmark, based at Abingdon Business Park.
A second device was spotted before it could go off, at Culham-based LGC Forensics and a third was sent to a DNA testing firm in Birmingham, but no-one was seriously hurt. Thames Valley Police are investigating, but so far no arrests have been made.
Speak, which has led the campaign against the construction of Oxford University's £18m animal experiments laboratory, denied any involvement, and the devices have not yet been claimed by any Animal Liberation Front cells.
Speak has always pledged to keep its protests lawful and peaceful but spokesman Emma Speed warned that last's weeks bombs may not be the last.
She said: "We are not going to condone or condemn these activities but it has become increasingly difficult to protest lawfully in Oxford because of a growing number of injunctions.
"If they can not protest legally, people will seek other ways to protest, and some people will go to these lengths.
"I was arrested for taking part in a peaceful demo at a degree ceremony in Oxford in June. I was arrested for offences under the Public Order Act and bailed and I'm due to be tried in April. Quite a lot of us are now banned from Oxford, simply for taking part in legal protests."
Last month, protesters held a demonstration at the Heyford Hill junction on Oxford's Southern Bypass because many are banned from entering the city. Last May, an exclusion zone around the laboratory was extended along South Parks Road to St Cross Road and down Mansfield Road.
Protesters are no longer be allowed to use megaphones during their weekly protests outside the lab.
Your Say YourOxford
CS, says...
11:39am Tue 23 Jan 07
Sponge Bob, says...
11:51am Tue 23 Jan 07
Alan, says...
1:08pm Tue 23 Jan 07
cath hurwood, says...
5:03pm Tue 23 Jan 07
dannnn, says...
5:04pm Tue 23 Jan 07
You mean, there WERE, back in the 50's when Britain had any right to call itself a democracy.
Whether protesting for animals is illegal or not depends entirely on its success: any legal protest that is successful is rewritten as a crime. This is EVINCED by the comment above me that collapses any distiction between speak and the ALF. We are told that speak have always favoured 'terror' tactics (what exactly? The author doesn't bother to back his comments up)
I for one have been picked up by the filth for handing out leaflets. Now, I shrug this off. But I fully support others who think to themselves "if we are going to be treated like criminals for simply marching, using a megaphone - note: a megaphone, not a grenade launcher - why the heck not become criminals anyway?'.
Alan, above, who argues that 'speak' go for a 'terror tactics' is an idiot. Speak has never once strayed on the wrong side of the law.
All the fools above claiming that there are 'proper ways' of protesting are - LIKE SPEAK - living in a fantasy land. There are no doubt 'proper' ways of conducting symbolic, pointless 'protest' -waving a banner to an army of police officers in a 'free speech zone' miles from anywhere - but in our global necropolis shaping public opinion is not possible by legal means: as soon as the possibility of success is spotted, the Police State clamps down on the methods employed, whatever they might be, and redefines them as 'illegal'.
The ALF is, quite frankly, the only hope for animals left: everyone else has been neutured by the police state.
Andy, says...
7:05pm Tue 23 Jan 07
When you would be the animal in the lab you would think in another way. When you are not in such a position like the animals in the labs you can't be believable when you are declining illegal action, which is the only way to save lives in a country where they have no rights.
I think too, the ALF is the only chance for this animals in the lab to be alive.
Steve, says...
6:54pm Mon 29 Jan 07
Lets face facts .. we shouldn't have the need to protest anyway!!! .. but sadly due to the real terrorists in the labs and the ignorance of a vast majority of the public who actually believe the lies churned out by pharma companies and the government .. innocent lifes needlessly die!!! (when i say innocent lifes .. that means human life as well as animals)!!
We are protesting legally and we are being very succesfull in getting the true facts across to the public ..
The government and the pharma companies/universities ect .. are really frightened of our success .. because as a result .. if they dont stop testing on animals .. they will lose revenue/profit!
New laws are being constantly introduced to try and silence us .. they are taking away our right to protest legally ..
I will continue to do my best to protest in a legal and effective manner .. but if i have that right to protest legally .. stolen from me .. then i wont be deterred .. they can class me as a criminal or a terrorist or whatever they want ... what we are doing is right .. they are the real terrorists .. all the public need do to see that is .. just open their eyes!
Megan, says...
7:13pm Wed 31 Jan 07
Your sayYourOxford
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Michael Johnson, says...
11:05am Tue 23 Jan 07
As, in Blairs Britain, free speech becomes a relic of the past, it is hardly surprising that such actions become realities.
As far as animal rights terrorists are concerned, in view of what animals suffer in labs to produce yet more copy-cat drugs, safe drugs that are shown to be harmful once used by humans, drugs for diseases which are in fact preventable, and for testing in respect of military purposes, I consider it is not the animal rights people who are the terrorists