Post by Don Smith on May 1, 2007 12:54:14 GMT -5
2.45pm update
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30 arrested as raids target animal rights extremists
Mark Oliver and agencies
Tuesday May 1, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Thirty people were arrested today on suspicion of involvement in animal rights extremism in a series of raids that targeted 29 UK addresses and three in Europe.
The operation - the culmination of two years of investigations - involved around 700 officers in early morning raids, and is thought to be the largest ever conducted against animal rights extremists.
A source from the National Extremist Crime Unit said the people detained were suspected of crimes including firebombing, arson and vandalism, the Guardian's crime correspondent, Sandra Laville, reported.
Hampshire police said 15 men and 15 women were held during the operation, which was conducted by five British police forces and related to investigations into past offences. Twenty-seven people remain in custody, and three have been released.
The raids, which began at around 5.30am, took place in Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, London, South Wales, Lancashire and Yorkshire. One address in Belgium was raided, as were two in the Netherlands. Police said they had taken action against an alleged extremist conspiracy targeting individuals and organisations including Huntingdon Life Sciences in Cambridgeshire.
Staff at HLS, Europe's largest contract medical testing centre, have faced a long-running campaign of attacks from animal rights activists.
In recent years, police have enjoyed success in curbing the actions of extremists, often using the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which expanded powers for targeting animal rights militants.
Those arrested today were held under the Act, but no charges have yet been brought.
The crackdown followed comments by the prime minister, Tony Blair, who has ordered police to do more to tackle animal rights militants.
Speaking last year, he pledged more "robust" action against extremists who targeted medical research facilities, and defended the use of animal testing for research.
Speaking at a news conference in Southampton today, Adrian Leppard, the assistant chief constable of Kent police, said the "substantial" operation could be the largest of its kind ever conducted.
He said police were looking for extremists who had created a "climate of fear" in sustained "campaigns of harassment and intimidation against the animal research industry", but would not comment on whether future attacks had been stopped by the raids.
Police had cooperated to investigate offences including burglary, conspiracy to blackmail and the targeting of animal research organisations, he added.
"The victims of animal rights extremism are not only companies or universities," he said. "It is employees, along with their families, friends and neighbours, who often are often targeted in their own homes," he said.
"The impact of these personalised campaigns on individuals is deeply distressing and often involves criminal activity."
He said HLS were a "major victim, as you would expect" along with a "number of other individuals and commercial organisations". He would not elaborate on other victims.
Mr Leppard stressed that the operation had not targeted the "lawful animal welfare campaigners, who have every right to express their personal views on such issues".
He said searches were ongoing and the operation would last for several days, apologising for any disruption to the areas in which the raids were carried out.
The Freshfields Animal Rescue Centre, in Ince Blundell, Merseyside, was among the addresses targeted. It has been taking in unwanted animals from across the region for more than 25 years.
Merseyside police confirmed that the centre, near Formby, a coastal town 15 miles north of Liverpool, had been raided as part of today's operation.
The FBI has previously described the UK as the global centre of animal rights extremism, and the National Extremist Crime Unit has been coordinating police investigations into criminal activity by some members of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
In February this year, the Guardian revealed that the operation included targeting animal rights street stalls in city centres.
Police said some stalls had been used to raise funds for criminal actions by extremists, including campaigns such as that against HLS.
Last month, the Daily Telegraph reported that animal rights extremists had been targeting farmers at a rate of one incident every nine days. The farmers attacked were predominantly involved in processed poultry farming.
In one incident, for which the ALF claimed responsibility, around £250,000 of damage was caused to lorries in a firebomb attack on a farming business in Oxfordshire.
The police raids today were carried out by Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Thames Valley forces, with support from the Metropolitan police and forces from South Wales, Strathclyde, Lancashire, North Yorkshire, West Mercia and West Yorkshire.
www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,2069522,00.html
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Environmentalists, activists of any stripe, are the enemies of "Freedom". More and more, this is how they will stifle any actions against the "right thinking" people in charge of our polity.
