Animal Rights Gathering 2007

Last week­end saw a real­ly suc­cess­ful gath­er­ing by the Ani­mal Rights com­mu­ni­ty of this Island. Although this year’s inter­na­tion­al Gath­er­ing was held in Hol­land, peo­ple also came from Poland, Ger­many, Aus­tria and South Africa amongst oth­er places. Many excel­lent work­shops were held, and there was much dis­cus­sion about the need to devel­op links between Ani­mal Rights and the grow­ing Eco Action move­ment con­cerned with human induced Cli­mate Change. We in the Ani­mal Rights com­mu­ni­ty are ful­ly aware that no mat­ter how suc­cess­ful we might be, with­out seri­ous action on Cli­mate Change it mat­ters lit­tle. We are keen, there­fore, to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who are com­mit­ted to Direct Action in sup­port of the Earth and all Life, and will be offer­ing our full sup­port to next year’s Cli­mate Camp.

Last week­end saw a real­ly suc­cess­ful gath­er­ing by the Ani­mal Rights com­mu­ni­ty of this Island. Although this year’s inter­na­tion­al Gath­er­ing was held in Hol­land, peo­ple also came from Poland, Ger­many, Aus­tria and South Africa amongst oth­er places. Many excel­lent work­shops were held, and there was much dis­cus­sion about the need to devel­op links between Ani­mal Rights and the grow­ing Eco Action move­ment con­cerned with human induced Cli­mate Change. We in the Ani­mal Rights com­mu­ni­ty are ful­ly aware that no mat­ter how suc­cess­ful we might be, with­out seri­ous action on Cli­mate Change it mat­ters lit­tle. We are keen, there­fore, to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who are com­mit­ted to Direct Action in sup­port of the Earth and all Life, and will be offer­ing our full sup­port to next year’s Cli­mate Camp.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the Gath­er­ing was policed in an extreme­ly provoca­tive and oppres­sive man­ner, cul­mi­nat­ing with a war­rant enforced raid on the Sun­day. Rather than low­er our­selves to their lev­el, we remained calm and applaud­ed them on and off the site. For once they almost seemed embar­rassed by their own behav­iour. Any­way it did­n’t stop us from hav­ing a pur­pose­ful and plea­sur­able time, and we all return to our cam­paigns renewed and rein­vig­o­rat­ed.

A spe­cial men­tion to sup­port the SHAC march in Hunt­ing­don on 10th Novem­ber, the first time we have been able to protest in Hunt­ing­don for some years. The bar­bar­ic prac­tice of vivi­sec­tion, sure­ly the most obvi­ous exam­ple of human­i­ty’s cal­lous dis­re­gard for all oth­er life, must be brought to an end. It is a chance to show sup­port for the SHAC three, Gregg and Natasha Avery and Heather Nichol­son, in prison now for six months, with no tri­al due till next June at the ear­li­est, and polit­i­cal pris­on­ers of this gov­ern­men­t’s deter­mi­na­tion to show that mon­ey mat­ters more than lives. The police are threat­en­ing to try to lim­it the num­bers to five hun­dred, let’s show them what protest means. Please sup­port it if you can, details from www.shac.net