In memory of Neil Lea a day of vegan campaigning.

Activists from Gloucestershire held stalls in Gloucester City centre yesterday to promote veganism to members of the public whilst handing out information on various animal issues. We had a fantastic response from the public who were so supportive…

We had decided after Neils death that a few members who knew Neil well would attend his memorial but most of us would honour his memory doing what he did so well, promoting veganism and respect for all living beings.

You can view the Memorial booklet given out at Neil’s funeral here and you can submit your tributes and remembrances to arc@veggies.org.uk

Here are some pictures of Neil in full effect – RIP brother.

Moron artist Hirst gets go ahead with “body storage”

From Gloucestershire Echo. 11 July 2007

A Contoversial scheme by artist Damien Hirst to process and store animal bodies at his Cotswold studios has been given the go-ahead by planners in Stroud.The plan, at the former Dudbridge Plastics works factory in Stroud, had attracted opposition from residents, who were concerned about smell, noise and animal rights protests.

The council received 45 letters of objection, with one resident describing the artist’s work as “perverted and grotesque.”

A report to the council pointed out that fears about the building being used to slaughter animals were unfounded. The creatures such as sheep and cows will be delivered to the studio already dead for processing for his art by Mr Hirst (pictured), who owns Toddington Manor, near Tewkesbury .

Members were shown a film of the site. Officers explained how the planned building had been moved slightly further away from homes.

Councillor Barbara Tait said: “This is a wonderful move. It (the building) has been neglected for 10 years.”

Green councillor John Marjoram added that the studios would add “interest” to Stroud.

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Our Comment: I’m not sure who is more of a moron, Hirst or the tosspots that pay through the nose to purchase this crap. In response to Barbara Tait, we could have filled the derelict building with something more useful and productive like ten year old sweatshop workers? This building has become a symbol of exploitation it should be left empty or preferably demolished with all of Hirsts “art” inside.

Stupid cops + floods = comedy gold

They dont call em bobbies for no reason

Activists help flood victims Foie Gras sellers the George Hotel refuses aid.

Activists from Gloucestershire Animal Action took a break from constant protests to help flood victims on Royal Well Road on Friday after a storm drain went out of control. Activists spend several hours helping to sandbag the homes and gardens of local residents.Unfortunately we quickly ran out of sandbags but had a large amount of sand still available, so was asked politely if the George Hotel could let us use some pillow cases to fill with sand, the staff member smirked and refused. He was then told that the homes of the elderly were flooding round in the lane and it wouldn’t hurt to give us ten cases to save the homes of local residents we would pay for them if needs be. “Sorry, cant help you.”

After an hour of trying desperately to construct flood defences using any available materials we approached the George again and luckily spoke to a more sympathetic staff member who could obviously see that despite our differences in regards to the Foie Gras demos we were trying to help people who’s lives were going to be turned upside down if we did not hurry. We were given 6 pillow cases which were immediately filled and placed in doorways.

The defences held long enough for a pump to arrive and the lane was drained over a matter of hours.

Omnivorous “Cat and Dog” Hypocrisy

After reading a news article yesterday entitled “Teen Girls Accused of Setting Kitten Ablaze” which described teenage girls setting alight to a kitten for “their own amusement”, I was reading through the visitor comments in which various people had made their stance clear about what they might consider to be justice for such a crime. The comments included “I’d burn them (the girls) and laugh.” And “I think they should be put into a mental institution so they can receive the proper care”. This of course is no surprise to hear how sentimental people feel about the life of an innocent kitty, these comments did however come across as somewhat hypocritical.

Why were these girls torturing a kitten? Amusement.

Would it have been more morally acceptable if they would have asked another individual to torture and kill the cat? When this question is asked to most people they would confirm it is just as unacceptable. When asked if they consume animal products most would reply “yes”, when asked why they eat meat, most would reply “I like the taste”.

This poses an awkward dilemma for those who eat meat and other animal products…

Why is it morally unacceptable for the girls to torture a kitten for amusement but it is morally acceptable for an individual to pay for another individual to kill / enslave / torture other sentient beings because they like the taste? Surely as excuses go there is little difference.

There is no disputing that animals feel pain as humans do and farmed animals feel pain just as our companion animals do? So why do we continue to knowingly cause suffering when we can choose a life of doing no harm? Buying free range does nothing for animals, with DEFRA guidelines animals can be kept in barns by the thousands and still be sold as free range, free range organic beef means nothing accept the usual chemicals that are pumped into animals to stop them getting infections and diseases are not used. There are no guarantees with a humane existence and most of all there is no ethical way to take another animals life.

Veganism as a compassionate lifestyle choice therefore should be the baseline for our moral stance in regards to the interests of the animal kingdom. Veganism is healthy, it removes you from the ongoing loop of exploitation of animals (including humans) and environment, not to mention it has been shown to be a much cleaner healthier dietary choice for human beings. You can find out more about veganism from www.vegansociety.com or email us info@stopanimalcruelty.co.uk for more information and meal ideas!

Further reading about the Abolitionist approach to animal rights can be found on Prof. Gary L. Franciones site www.abolitionistapproach.com

Chris

Shocking Foie Gras video report from Quebec

Foie Gras – A report from the frontlines

We apologise for the lack of updates but we have been on the Foie Gras frontlines literally over the past weeks with only two days rest. We have been relentless in our resolve for the ducks and geese that are tortured for the vile Foie Gras industry.

Unsurprisingly the police and NETCU have been rather unrelenting as well during our lawful protests making six wrongful arrests on two occasions for supposed tresspass / breach of the peace etc. We had a sergeant shoulder barge one young protester for looking through the window of the police car. We have been moved away using Section 14 notices, we have been told we would be nicked and “I don’t need evidence I just need reasonable suspicion” (this is right but knowing full well we haven’t broken the law makes this a bit of an threat). We have been told to “Grow up, animals will always be used and we can’t stop it” by a custody sergeant. Not to mention being told by two cops on separate occasions “We WILL stop your protests you know”. Better get an armed response unit out quick because you will have to pry MY placard from my death grip.

Anyway we don’t want to concentrate on the cops, they will be self-”cop”ulating over the idea of being mentioned on the internet as it is.

Our protests at the Queens Hotel have a history, for those of you we started protests around a year and a half ago but the protests were few and far between as our group were concentrating on fur campaigning during this time. It took around 8 protests without a break for them to question whether it is really worth losing customers over one item on the menu. A constant police presence further enhanced the effect of our protests reducing the Queens to the status of a grotty bed and breakfast in Blackpool rather than the pride of Cheltenham Spa. They definitely tried every trick in the book to stop the protests they lied to the police telling them a protester entered the hotel and started harassing staff (which resulted in five arrested) and they told one protester “I could kill you like that” (snapping fingers). But eventually they took down the menu and we received confirmation via email that they had permanently removed Foie Gras from the menu.

During our protests at the Queens to keep the local law keepers on their toes we broke away to give our friends at Lumiere some attention. After three days of returning and countless apologies and free bottles of wine to their patrons and a year after the chef cooked “Foie Gras” for protesters to try and then attempted to throw it at protesters (he was then reprimanded by the police), the owner approached activists with a statement “Foie gras has been permanently removed from our menus”.

La Scala and Merlot Brassiere are literally opposite each other, unluckily for both of these businesses (and the ducks and geese who suffer for Foie Gras) road names aren’t the only thing they have in common, they both serve(d) Foie gras. We try to focus our protests at these two businesses on Saturdays as they are closed most evenings when the majority of our protests take place. After around seven protests La Scala informed us that they had permanently removed Foie Gras from the menu as a result of the protests. Unfortunately Merlot continues to sell Foie Gras – Contact details below.

Yesterday (17th July 2007) saw Hotel on the Park receive their first protest, they were very understanding and removed the menu and have now confirmed the removal of foie gras from the menus via email – many thanks to them.

Protests at Monty’s and the George Hotel in Cheltenham are ongoing and they have received half a dozen protests so far with many free bottles of wine being offered because of the protesters causing such a “disturbance”. They produced yesterday a letter saying the are now serving Foie Gras from “Free range” ducks (not geese because that is apparently more cruel?!) that are NOT FORCE FED!?!?!! Had they said they had sourced the Foie Gras from Spain we might have been more convinced, but they confirmed it was a French supplier.

Foie gras (French for “fat liver”) is “the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by gavage” (as defined by French law [1]).

[1] French rural code L654-27-1: “On entend par foie gras, le foie d’un canard ou d’une oie spécialement engraissé par gavage.” (“By “foie gras” one is to understand the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by gavage”).

During one protest at Monty’s and the George police seized a banner that read “SERVING DISEASED MEAT” although Foie gras literally is diseased meat (liver disease – hepatic lipidosis). The police said our text only banner had “Caused alarm and distress”. Even if it is totally true. We continued to inform the public loudly that they are serving diseased meat which may have been prepared next to the meals they were eating.

Bistro Scena have had a fair few protests outside and the tiny French fellow and tall chef always like to make a comment or try to humiliate themselves in front of the restaurant patrons. On one occasion last week they managed to exit the restaurant and attack our group in front of two dinners who were wholly supportive of our campaign. Needless to say for a dinner to break up a brawl between activists and restaurant staff showed the level of stupidity they are serving at this particular place. What caused the battle to ensue? The petite owner of Bistro Scena decided he could threaten a younger member of the group to stop the protest and was filmed, when he realised his actions were being recorded he lunged at the person filming and went into a frenzied attack… no doubt fearful that the police might not like his threatening behaviour.

Anyway the battle continues on the Foie Gras frontline. More info coming soon…

So far we have received confirmation from: Queens Hotel, Lumiere, La Scala, Frere Jacques.

Watch this space…

Chris

Please Contact the following businesses using the details below.

Merlot Brasserie
merlotbrasserie@hotmail.co.uk
phone: 01242 574008

Monty’s Brasserie
hotel@stayatthegeorge.co.uk
Phone: 01242 227678

Bistro Scena
info@bistro-scena.co.uk
Phone: 01242 238134

Cheltenham Hamper Company
sales@cheltenhamhampers.com
Phone: 0870 203 3000

Kandinsky
kandinsky@aliashotels.com
Phone: 01242 527788

Le Champignon Sauvage
mail@lechampignonsauvage.co.uk
Phone: 01242 573449

The Daffodil
eat@thedaffodil.com
01242 700055

All emails:

merlotbrasserie@hotmail.co.uk; hotel@stayatthegeorge.co.uk; info@bistro-scena.co.uk; sales@cheltenhamhampers.com; kandinsky@aliashotels.com; mail@lechampignonsauvage.co.uk; eat@thedaffodil.com

(Please be lawful in your communications – it does nothing for animals if you are aggressive or threatening)

Neil Lea 1958 – 2007 – RIP

Taken from Veggies:

Neil Lea was an extraordinary man. Each day was a battle to overcome his, sometimes very painful, illness to get on with his tireless campaigning for animal rights. The loss to our movement is immeasurable. But Neil’s strength and determination should inspire us all to continue the fight – no matter how tough it gets.

Neil died at 6.08 on Tuesday July 10th. His death was very peaceful. As many of you know he had quite a few health problems, and in the end his kidney failed and there was nothing they could do other than make him as comfortable as possible

Neil’s funeral will take place on Saturday 28th July. It will be an environmentally – friendly woodland burial in the Manchester area – the exact place will be confirmed soon.

The burial ceremony will be about 2pm. There will be an event beforehand to celebrate Neil’s life and contribution to the movement, with speakers, stalls, vegan food etc. There will also be a social event and animal rights get-together in the evening. It will be an animal rights funeral, and all activists are invited to share in the day, whether or not you knew Neil personally. Feel free to wear animal rights t-shirts, badges etc.

For any enquiries about the funeral arrangements, contact info@londonanimalrights.org.uk
Tel: 07899 775493

Five wrongful arrests during peaceful foie gras protest at the Queens Hotel

Five activists from Gloucestershire Animal Action were arrested on Tuesday 27th June during a peaceful demonstration outside the Queens Hotel in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Two undercover police officers were on site from 5pm and a uniformed police officer was on site at around 5:30pm to tell the protesters to be quiet during the demonstration and to inform us we were not allowed to use a megaphone on our demonstration (so we ceased its use and used our voices which the sergeant was ok with…). Being so diplomatic he used the amusing phrase “I’ve got plenty of empty cells and I’d gladly fill them up with you lot!”, It would seem it doesn’t matter if we have broken the law or not does it?

We then moved on to Lumiere for a lively protest during which time the manageress told us she was phoning the police… Oh NO… not more wasting of police time! No police were forthcoming on this occasion and many complimentary bottles of wine were given out to dinners to apologise for the protest.

At around 7:30 we returned to the Queens Hotel for more protest, everything was peaceful the guests were more than happy to take leaflets and agreed with out sentiments 99% of the time. At around 8pm sirens were heard closing in… Five police cars and a police van arrived with around 12-13 very purposeful looking public “servants” flying towards us telling us we had been inside the hotel… We had not entered and had no reason to talk with staff inside or outside.

The police confirmed they had reports of a female entering which fitted the description of one of our group and we were summarily arrested under Section 5 of the public order act. On exit of the police van one of our activists hit her head on the roof and was smirked at by a particularly ugly copper.

We were held in the booking in room for a while as we were checked in one at the time… during which time the megaphone siren decided to go off to the shock of everyone at the cop shop… It was funny though

At around 2am we were released without charge and given the following speech by some arse of a copper who clearly was a right wing pillock.

(Paraphrased) You lot need to grow up, people are always going to use animals… thats what they are for youll never stop it.

At which point I envisioned him in a 60s style uniform talking to a young black kid whom he had beaten badly saying its nothing personal its just the colour of your skin…

I politely told him, thanks for the speech but while people exploit other life or the environment we will always be here protesting.

During our time in the cells, one activist was denied medical care after requesting it. 3 activists denied food and water.

No apologies were forthcoming. We will be pursuing a claim ASAP and complaints will be made via the IPCC.

Please check out this video about Foie Gras…

Thanks

Chris

Open letter of complaint to the Cheltenham Science Festival organisers.

An open letter to the organisers of the Cheltenham Science Festival.

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to complain regarding the ill treatment of a number of my colleagues on Friday 8th June during a talk at the Science Festival by Tipu Aziz and Mary Baker on Deep Brain Stimulation.

I hope you might agree that asking questions and engaging in debate is a healthy social conduct that should be encouraged, especially to the 16,000 students and members of the public that attend the Cheltenham Science Festival.

If this is the case I find myself wondering why those who attended on behalf of Dr Claude Reiss PHD (a Parkinson’s researcher from France) were forcibly ejected from the hall after waiting patiently to ask reasonable questions to Aziz?

At one point I saw a member of your staff tell security to apprehend a person MID QUESTION!

Please can you explain why you felt the need to silence these people and their questions? They were asked what their questions were and they responded in a polite manner.

Here is the first question asked by someone whom attended.

“The Oxford Student, 21st Jan 2007, contained an article in which you state: “I was central to discovering the Subthalamic nucleus as a target for Deep Brain Stimulation”. However, according to neurosurgeon Dr Marius Maxwell, the first paper published on the role of the STN did not involve you at all, but Bergman, Wichmann, DeLong. Science 249 (4979) 1436-8,1990 Sep 21.

Here is what the author of our leaflet, Dr Claude Reiss, has to say about this area: “Although it is true that the application of Deep Brain Stimulation to the subthalamic nucleus has been suggested by experiments in MPTP monkeys, the application of Deep Brain Stimulation to PD sufferers was rapidly promoted following the discovery of the Benabid team, through human surgery. There is no doubt that the benefit of subthalamic nucleus stimulation would have been have been found without monkey experiments”.

At this point Mary Baker decided to interrupt. “Do you actually have a question??”. – She wasn’t rude enough to interrupt any non animal research related questions.

“Yes – Given all of the above, how can you justify the vast research grants which continue to divert funds towards monkeys, instead of human patients”?

And what was Tipu Aziz’s response to this question?

“Yes”

Here is the second question asked by an anti vivisectionist during the allotted “question time”.

“On the BBC’s recent documentary “Monkeys Rats and Me”, with reference to Felix, the macaque monkey, you said, and I quote: pain “is not part of the process of my research”. However Oxford University has disclosed that your research has been classified in the most severe category – substantial – which involves “significant morbidity”, a “major departure from the animals’ usual wellbeing”, and welfare that is “seriously compromised”, as defined by the Guidance on the Operation of the ASPA 1986. Can you explain this apparent contradiction and how do you respond to the charge that you are incapable of fulfilling…”

At this point a member of your staff points at the activist mid question and police and security move towards him.

“…the duties of a licence holder because you are incapable of recognising the adverse effects suffered by Felix, and others, in your experiments.”

He finishes his question and is lifted to his feet by two security.

Tipu Aziz’ response was “I research Parkinson’s, not pain”.

I am saddened that the Science Festival does not welcome those who oppose animal research yet welcome funding from companies such as Pfizer who are due to enter court for using third world children in clinical trials which resulted in a number of deaths after they were given experimental drugs. Tipu Aziz who is a “scientist” who partakes in flawed animal research in order to keep the research grants flowing, Colin Blakemore of the Medical Research Council who shot to notoriety after being filmed sewing kittens eyes shut from birth, QinetiQ who use animals to test their human killing war devices.

The list goes on, this leads me to think that the festival will accept money from literally anyone regardless of the human, animal or environmental cost.

These companies that have together taken so many lives and caused so much ecological destruction you welcome with open arms to talk to the future adults whilst preventing any other viewpoint from being expressed.

Please attempt to use your conscience when planning the next Science Festival, maybe you could invite those involved with developing life saving techniques using humans instead of those who have cured the most mice of cancer.

Thank you for taking the time to read my email,

Chris – Gloucestershire Animal Action