Theoria

From Inside Higher Ed – “Going on the Offensive Against Animal ‘Liberationists’”

As a battleground for the animal liberation movement, the University of California at Los Angeles has weathered threats, intimidation and property damage directed against several of its researchers over the past few years. Today — two weeks after a firebomb went off at the same professor’s house that in October was flooded with a garden hose — the university moved beyond law enforcement, the bully pulpit and security reinforcements and filed a lawsuit against three groups and five individuals.

The suit, which will be filed formally in state court this morning, is the latest in a series of steps the campus has taken against activists who view their tactics — which have included attempting to use Molotov cocktails on researchers’ doorsteps and sending a package filled with razor blades — as legitimate protest against experiments and testing that sometimes involves harming or killing animals. After some faculty members’ families had received harassing calls and messages, the university announced in 2006 a strategy that encompassed possible legal action against harassment; improving security of laboratories and faculty members’ homes and families; lobbying for legislation against such tactics; and posting reward money for information leading to arrests (currently $170,000). It is already cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force in a criminal investigation.

[...]

“It’s unfortunate that this had to come about, but we’re glad that they are challenging this kind of illegal activity and not letting it stand,” said Mary Hanley, the executive director of the National Association for Biomedical Research, which supports “humane animal use” in research, education and product testing. “Law enforcement have been frustrated for years in trying to identify, discover and prosecute these people, and because of that it’s a continuing campaign and maybe this is one small step towards getting it under control. We applaud UCLA for taking this step, and sorry that they have to.”

[...]

The October flooding incident was directed against a professor, Edythe London, who was also the target of a firebombing attempt earlier this month. ALF claimed responsibility in a message that read, in part: “One more thing Edythe, water was our second choice, fire was our first. We compromised because we in the ALF don’t risk harming animals human and non human and we don’t risk starting brush fires. It would have been just as easy to burn your house down Edythe. As you slosh around your flooded house consider yourself fortunate this time. We will not stop until UCLA discontinues its primate vivisection programe [sic].” The anonymous Web site that posted the message described London as a “primate vivisector” and said she was targeted for “torturing non-human animals to death in outdated and unnecessary experiments.” (London has not been speaking to the media for privacy reasons.)

[...]

“It’s a really important question because we do have to find a way to have civilized debate about issues where society has mixed opinions,” he said in an interview. “In this particular case, polls of the public more than once have shown in general very strong support for animal research because people understand that virtually every medical discovery in recent era has had a part of the research done using animal models in the vast majority of fields.”

Skorton added that the treatment of animals in such research was “a critical concept,” and that adopting guidelines and safeguards — and ensuring that the work could not otherwise be done without animals — was important to research. “I do think it’s critically important to take seriously the need to do animal research … in an appropriate fashion and to treat the animal subjects with dignity and with a humane sense of care. I think it’s very, very important. And secondly, I think it’s important to maintain a dialogue about how to do that better.”