Animal Liberation Front Presses on with Controversial Tactics

Animal liberationists, including the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), have not paused in the frequency or intensity of their attacks on the property of individuals and institutions associated with animal slaughter or experimentation.

In New York City on July 13, ALF activists fired the last salvo in the ALF's campaign against the controversial UK- and US-based animal experimentation firm Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) and its customers and investors by hacking into the company files of Lagrange Capital Management, an HLS investor. In a July 13 communiqué, the activists wrote that they had guessed the company password and used it to delete the access of more than 300 Lagrange associates. "Times up, sell your shares in Huntingdon Life Sciences," the activists warned.

Several ALF members, in a July 5 communiqué, claimed responsibility for spray-painting home of New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) board member Ellyn Brown with the slogans "NYSE Puppy Killers" and "Drop HLS." The communiqué's authors also claimed that, several days later, a banner was found over the front gate to Brown's home reading, "Drop HLS from NYSE for Good."

In addition, activists whose organizational affiliation, if any, is unknown spray-painted the door and stoop of Abbot Labs director John Frederick Richardson's Washington, DC, home, and broke a window there, according to the activists' June 29 communiqué. The spray-painted words read, presumably in red paint, read, "Red is really your color John! It totally compliments the broken window! Like broken glass and read [sic] paint! Keep doing business with HLS!" Abbot Labs is an HLS customer.

ALF members also vandalized seven Austin, Texas, restaurants that serve veal and foie gras, which are also long-standing targets of mainstream animal rights activists, on July 2. The ALF members issued a communiqué on July 8 that includes photographs of the vandalism, which included spray-painted slogans on the doors and windows of Aquarelle, Eddie V's, Edgewater Grille, Fleming's, Restaurant Jezebel, Ruth's Chris Steak House, the Spaghetti Warehouse, and Truluck's. The most used slogan appears to have been "Fuck veal," though "Veal sux" [sic] and "Fuck foie gras and veal" can also be seen in the photographs. Many anti-meat activists find veal to be particularly abhorrent, since its production involves the very restrictive confinement and heavy feeding of milk fat to calves. In his landmark book Animal Liberation, first published in 1975, academic Peter Singer asserts that there is no humane way to produce veal.

References:

"Communiqué from ALF activists. Date: July 13, 2007. Institution targeted: HLS Investor LaGrange Capital Management." North American Animal Liberation Press Office Website. World Wide Web. Internet. July 13, 2007. http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2007-07-13_lagrange_hls.htm. Accessed July 20, 2007.

"Communiqué from ALF activists. Date: July 8, 2007. Institution targeted: Foie Gras and Veal Purveyors." North American Animal Liberation Press Office Website. World Wide Web. Internet. July 8, 2007. http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2007-07-08_austin.htm. Accessed July 20, 2007.

"Communiqué from ALF activists. Date: July 5, 2007. Institution targeted: New York Stock Exchange." North American Animal Liberation Press Office Website. World Wide Web. Internet. July 5, 2007. http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2007-07-05_nyse_hls.htm. Accessed July 20, 2007.

"Communiqué from unknown activists. Date: June 29, 2007. Institution targeted: Abbott Laboratories, HLS Customer." North American Animal Liberation Press Office Website. World Wide Web. Internet. June 29, 2007. http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2007-06-29_abbotlabs_hls.htm. Accessed July 20, 2007.

Peter Singer. Animal Liberation. Revised edition. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991.