Last weekend, a self-described “nonviolent” animal rights group known by the acronym SHAC held a series of demonstrations centered in New Jersey to mark the 50th birthday of medical testing laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences. Actually, it was Huntingdon’s 51st birthday — but we’ll forgive the activists for this gaffe, as protest chanting (“1, 2, 3, 4…”) seldom requires counting that high.
It was also World AIDS Day, a striking irony considering SHAC’s virulent hatred for the very animal testing which could someday provide an AIDS cure.
Before the Sunday afternoon demonstration in front of Huntingdon, and the subsequent loud, threatening protests outside the homes of Huntingdon employees, SHAC held a Saturday evening lecture series of sorts. Invited guests included Rodney Coronado, a convicted felon who spent four years in jail for a Michigan State University arson (and recipient of over $70,000 from PETA); 1960s Black Panther icon Bobby Seale; and Robin Webb, a self-avowed leader of the terrorist Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in the UK. Webb was arrested during Sunday’s organized mayhem.
While animal-rights activists and their “independent media” allies are going out of their way to insist that the protests were entirely peaceful, the SHAC and ALF ringleaders’ rhetoric was anything but warm and fuzzy. We know. We were there.
The following are unedited quotes, taken directly from videotapes of the recent SHAC protests. Let it never be said again that SHAC and ALF are peaceful, nonviolent organizations.
“Animal liberation is not a campaign. It is not a struggle. It is a war! It is an all-out bloody war!”
– UK ALF spokesperson Robin Webb
“As long as we emptied the labs of animals, they were still easily replaced. So that’s when the ALF in this country, and my cell, started engaging in arson.”
– ALF-affiliated criminal (and PETA grantee) Rodney Coronado
“We’re a new breed of activism. We’re not your parents’ Humane Society. We’re not Friends of Animals. We’re not Earthsave. We’re not Greenpeace. We come with a new philosophy. We hold the radical line. We will not compromise! We will not apologize, and we will not relent! … Vivisection is not an abstract concept. It’s a deed, done by individuals, who have weaknesses, who have breaking points, and who have home addresses!”
– SHAC ringleadaer and former ALF spokesperson Kevin Jonas
“We’ll sweep the police aside. We’ll sweep the government aside. We’ll sweep Huntingdon Life Sciences aside, and we’ll raze this evil place right to the ground”
– Robin Webb
