Home-Grown Animal-Rights Militant Banned From UK

The British Home Secretary, acting on Center for Consumer Freedom research and investigative reporting from a top London newspaper, has banned animal-rights extremist Jerry Vlasak from entering the United Kingdom. On May 20, we sent a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), whose subcommittee was investigating the very real danger posed to America by violent animal-liberation militants. Included in our letter — which the Senator read aloud to the entire committee — was a chilling quote from Vlasak advocating the murder of researchers whose work requires the use of animals.

Billed as a speaker for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM is a quasi-medical group affiliated with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Vlasak told the national “Animal Rights 2003” conference: “I don’t think you’d have to kill — assassinate — too many … I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.”

On July 25, the London Observer‘s Jamie Doward broke the story that the violence-preaching Vlasak planned a UK trip to instruct British animal-rights terrorists. Now, the Home Office (roughly analogous to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) has informed Vlasak and wife Pamelyn Ferdin that they aren’t welcome “on the grounds that their presence here would not be conducive to the public good.”

Vlasak has extensive ties to PCRM, which disguises its animal-rights agenda behind doctors’ lab coats. But Vlasak openly advocates violent tactics. Speaking at the “Animal Rights 2004” conference this summer, he argued:

It won’t ruin our movement if someone gets killed in an animal rights action. It’s going to happen sooner or later. The Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front — sooner or later there’s going to be someone getting hurt. And we have to accept that fact. It’s going to happen. It’s not going to hurt our movement. Our movement will go on.

That’s precisely the insanity that responsible public officials in Britain are trying to prevent from spreading. The Guardian reports today:

In her letter banning her from the UK [Ferdin] was told her “presence is undesirable because of your conduct (in particular your willingness to engage in confrontational activities in support of the animal rights movement) and your associations (in particular your role in and with the Animal Defence League-LA and support for Dr Vlasak’s activities in the animal rights movement).”

Correspondence from the Home Office to Ferdin — who, like her husband, has had a clear affiliation with PCRM — emphasized that the UK has no interest in playing host to those who put animal liberation before human lives:

The secretary of state has now reached a final decision and has given a personal direction for you not to be given entry to the United Kingdom on the ground that your exclusion is conducive to the public good. I am instructed to inform you that you are hereby excluded from the United Kingdom.