The
SPEAK campaign was born from the victory of a campaign against Cambridge University (they won that fight) now the SPEAK campaign is to continue its role
in the animal rights debate within the public and political arena through
pro-active campaigning.
SPEAK has learnt from a source well placed within Oxford University,
that talks between Cambridge and Oxford have taken place and that the
new facility will be doing some of the brain experiments that were
lost at Cambridge. This is a totally unacceptable state of affairs,
Cambridge University failed to demonstrate to a public enquiry that
the brain experiments they planned to conduct on primates at Girton
had any scientific validity and yet Oxford are prepared to go down
the same discredited road.
What a neuro-scientist said about the new Oxford animal lab recently:
As an Oxford graduate I am appalled by the decision of Oxford University to proceed with the construction of the animal research laboratory on South Parks Road. They are swimming against the tide of international medical and ethical opinion. I fear that history will judge their animal rights opponents as less extreme than the very scientists who persist in non-human primate research in the face of an increasing body of consistent and compelling evidence that the resulting data has and will continue to endanger countless human lives.
The spectacle of a minority of Oxford animal researchers
tirelessly promoting their claimed achievements before the media has
caused me deep unease. They have surprisingly gone on record in backing
the use of animals in cosmetic testing and urging the return to the use
of great apes in experimentation, activities which have been illegal in
the UK for many years. In my experience, the humility and reticence
characteristic of truly eminent scientists precludes such behaviour and
the protagonists should understand that because of obvious bias they
should be the very last people to loudly judge the merits of their own
work. The recent BBC2 documentary (Monkeys, Rats and Me, 27th November,
2006) on non-human primate vivisection was wholly emotional and lacking
in any truly scientific balance or objectivity. I found the images of
severely affected patients being presented to back their doctor's
various therapeutic assertions to be regrettable. This is not the way
to present a controversial scientific case for critical public
evaluation. Many of my Oxford colleagues in world-class scientific
laboratories, and in the humanities, are privately aghast at the
ability of a small group of media-savvy vivisectionists to hold the
debate hostage and thereby besmirch the international reputation of
their University. They are unwilling to broadcast their opinions
because of the perceived danger of recrimination by the University and
funding bodies.
Our government has already wasted £200 MILLION on funding this monstrosity.
Thats OUR taxpayers money.
This is a classic example of how the media manipulates public opinion using lies, editing, and emotional blackmail to promote vivisection and show animal rights campaigners in a bad light.
Maybe its best to read the complaint first before watching the programme so you watch it with your eyes 'open'.
Watch the biased documentary ‘Monkeys, Rats and Me’
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7413872602145402453&q=monkeys+rats+and+me
Read the official complaint from Europeans for Medical Progress to the BBC2 'Documentary' ‘Monkeys, Rats and Me’
http://www.curedisease.net/news/bbccomplaints.html
Obviously this pic was taken from an angle so you can't read the slogan on the banner fully.... it actually says 'STOP THE OXFORD ANIMAL LAB'.
Please listen.....for felix sake!
Meet from 9.30am outside Oxford Magistrates Court
Oxford Magistrates Court
Speedwell Street
Oxford
Oxfordshire
OX1 1RZ
On Monday 30th April 16 supporters of the SPEAK campaign will start a trial at
Oxford magistrates court that has been set to last four weeks. This case has
arisen out of the arrest of SPEAK supporters who held a perfectly legal
demonstration at the Oxford university Encaenia ceremony in June 2006.
The arrests have led to the 16 being barred from entering Oxford for almost ten
months, which in itself represents a severe attack on people's basic rights. We
are under no illusion that this trial is politically motivated, but more
disturbing is the very clear involvement of other bodies in making sure that
legal protesters are subjected to harassment and intimidation (more details and
documentary evidence that exposes corruption at the highest level will be
disclosed after the Court case). Of course it should come as no surprise to
anyone that an institution that will subject animals like Felix to years of
unnecessary suffering will stoop to using its influence to stamp on those who
stand up to it.
For those going to court it is not just about our rights to protest but a clear
recognition that in standing up for ourselves we are standing up for Felix and
all the animals locked away and abused in institutions like Oxford University.
It is vital that we all stand together against the corrupt and nihilistic
elements that exist within powerful institutions and organisations whose only
motivation is one of self interest.
We will enter the court not just for ourselves but for all the animals like
Felix who deserve so much better from a so-called civilised society and for all
the human victims of vivisection.
Please come along and add your support to the fight to defend our rights to
protest and the right for Felix and all animals to be free from suffering.
In
a desperate attempt to "soften" their image and gain positive publicity
in the face of ongoing opposition to their plans to build a new animal
testing facility, Oxford University recently allowed cameras into its
lab to meet and film Felix, a macaque monkey who is scheduled to
undergo invasive surgery on his brain and a long succession of
tests. The first vivisection lab to introduce one of its victims Oxford
used the opportunity to fabricate a facade of cooperation and kind
treatment in the laboratory. Although the university put on a show in
front of the cameras to try to convince the public that primates are
willing participants who have control over their environment, nothing
could be further from the truth.
In reality, Felix, who was also
featured in the 2006 BBC2 documentary Monkeys, Rats and Me, another
subjective and sanitized "exploration" into animal testing, can expect
years of torment and suffering before being put to death. Conditioned
through an endless campaign of fear and deprivation, Felix will be
forced to undergo painful, invasive procedures at the hands of the
notoriously cruel Tipu Aziz, a vivisector who has been heavily
criticised by other scientists working in the field of neuroscience.
Considering that the Home Office counts the deliberate infliction of
brain damage on monkeys as only "moderate severity", and the licence
granted to Aziz allows for "substantial severity", during this long
term experiment, there is no telling how much agony Felix will have to
endure.
Every year, 1.7 million nameless primates just as
intelligent and sensitive as Felix are caged, poisoned, restrained, cut
open, addicted to drugs and alcohol, subjected to maternal deprivation
experiments, induced to suffer strokes, blinded, burned, given diabetes
and cancer and infected with HIV and Ebola, forced to endure
Parkinson's-like symptoms, and have their heads sawed open and their
brains left exposed. PETA US investigators have documented countless
incidents in which primates have been driven insane by intense
confinement and fear of cruel procedures. Primates, who have the
capacity to experience anxiety, fear, terror, frustration and pain,
often become so withdrawn and depressed that they repeatedly circle
around their cages and resort to mutilating their own bodies.
Learn what neuroscientists have to say about animal experiments at Oxford.
At
the time the BBC2 documentary was aired, Felix was slated to undergo
surgery on his brain. If this invasive surgery hasn't already started,
it will begin any day now. At this moment, it is uncertain how long
Felix will be allowed to live. All that we do know is that Felix is
being held and deprived of a natural existence by Oxford University. If
we don't act now, the oxford vivisectors will continue to harm Felix
and he will die without ever having seen the outside world or having
the chance to enjoy the companionship of his own kind again.
Joan Court is 88 years old, and she's been working on behalf of animals for a very long time. Yesterday in Oxford, she made another powerful statement for animals that has already garnered international media attention. Accompanied by members of PETA UK holding signs reading, "Save Felix - Oxford, Stop Primate Torture", Joan donned a prisoner costume and sat in a small cage as she began a 48-hour fast. Joan’s fast is a protest of the vile brain experiments that are being inflicted on a monkey named Felix by a fellow named Tipu Aziz who, in a more civilized society, would have been tried, sentenced, and exiled to some barren desert a very long time ago. PETA UK is asking members of the public to contact Home Secretary John Reid and urge him to release Felix immediately to an accredited sanctuary and stop the expansion of the Oxford animal laboratory. And the redoubtable Joan Court is making a larger point—since this week is World Week for Animals in Laboratories—about the barbaric nature of animal experimentation. Do you really need an octogenarian in a cage to tell you that torturing intelligent primates is wrong? You can read the full story here, but keep Joan in your thoughts today—she's going to be very hungry.
ear Tracey,
As I write this, millions of frightened animals who are confined to barren metal cages and hidden from the public in laboratories are suffering in abject misery.
Animals in laboratories have chemicals pumped into their stomachs or poured into their eyes. They have flesh cut from various parts of their bodies without any painkillers. Their heads are cut open so that devices can be inserted into their skulls. They suffer repeated and terrifying violence.
Felix is a macaque monkey who lives behind bars in a laboratory that belongs to Oxford University. We know exactly where Felix is being held because the university recently allowed him to be filmed in response to mounting public opposition to its plan to build a new animal-testing facility.
In their native homes in Asia, macaque monkeys like Felix spend much of their time grooming, touching and cuddling each other. They are highly social primates who enjoy each other's company and thrive on being free to move about their surroundings. In the wild, these animals form complex social networks. They suffer terribly when they are confined to cages with nothing to look at but barren walls and no members of their own species to interact with.
In Oxford's animal-testing laboratory, Felix is denied everything that is natural and important to him. Like other desperately scared and lonely animals in laboratories, he’ll be confined to a metal box for his entire life. Instead of spending his time climbing and playing games in the sun, Felix will be subjected to terrifying and painful procedures.
At any time, Felix will suffer invasive cranial procedures. He will be given Parkinson's-like symptoms - even though non-human primates do not naturally get this disease. The experimenter who will be conducting tests on Felix has been granted permission to cause him pain classified as being of "substantial severity".
It's not too late to save Felix and others like him, but we need to act now!
Saturday 2nd June 07
Meet: Edge of exclusion zone opposite the Chemistry Lab on South Parks Road, Oxford.
Map:
The SPEAK monthly demo will soon take place in Oxford City centre. For over three years now Oxford University have been desperately trying to silence the SPEAK Campaign. In trying to achieve this they have misled the law courts of this country and have lied in order to be granted a draconian injunction. They have tried to imprison the co-founders of SPEAK for daring to speak out against them and they have been involved in a widespread campaign of misinformation, trying time and again to hoodwink the British public.
However, the SPEAK Campaign is growing in strength and our numbers are swelling and the support we are receiving from members of the public in Oxford is a clear sign that the black propaganda being peddled by Oxford University, the Government and many of their friends is just not working.
The monthly demos in Oxford City centre are a great opportunity to get our message out to the Oxford public and dispel the many myths that are propagated about us by the pro-vivisectionists in a desperate attempt to turn public opinion against us. The fact of the matter is: support for us, amongst the public, is growing steadily.
Why not join us in Oxford this Saturday and be part of a growing movement - it's important that we get out onto the streets of Oxford to inform the public as to the true facts about vivisection and the truth about Oxford University, a truth they are so desperate to hide. The university will think nothing of indulging in deceit in order to be able to carry on with a fraudulent scientific practice that puts millions of pounds into their coffers a year; a practice that is not only responsible for killing millions of non human animals but gives false hope to those with serious illnesses and is also responsible for needlessly killing thousands of people a year due to the dangerous reactions from drugs not identified by experimenting on non human animals!
Join us. Together we can and must win.
The Speak protest which led to the court caseFourteen animal rights campaigners walked free from court today after a judge condemned the police for unlawfully stopping their protest.
The protesters were all cleared of refusing police orders to break up the demonstration against Oxford University's animal research laboratory outside the Sheldonian Theatre at the Encaenia ceremony last July.
A tape-recording emerged during the trial of unguarded comments by officers, calling the campaigners from the Speak animal rights group "c****", saying they wanted to "prosecute the s*** out of them" and claiming the university was powerful.
The comments, caught on a dictaphone accidentally switched on inside an officer's pocket, led to Speak accusing the force and university of colluding to stifle their right to protest.
During last summer's protest, demonstrators refused to move from outside the Sheldonian Theatre, where the Encaenia ceremony was being held, under police powers known as section 14s, and instead sat down.
At Bicester Magistrates' Court, District Judge Deborah Wright cleared all 14 defendants of offences under section 14 of the Public Order Act.
But she found 70-year-old Pauline Broughton guilty of obstructing a police officer and Fran Cornwell guilty of assaulting a police officer - and gave them both absolute discharges.
Ms Wright said: "I find the (section 14) conditions were imposed unlawfully.
The protesters after the court case
"Whoever was responsible for making the decision that this prosecution should proceed in light of the tape may well have made a serious error of judgment."
She added: "Although the (taped) conversations were made away from the public, all the officers were on duty. Pc (Colin) Travi accepted he had referred to them (the protesters) as c****."
He was also recorded saying "the problem is the protesters do not realise how powerful the university is - it's a sleeping giant".
Pc Andy Bignall was recorded saying: "We knew we were going to take bodies today."
Supt Chris Shead said: "Now we have to prosecute the s*** out of them."
And Ms Wright added Chief Insp Chris Sharp admitted the measures they imposed were "draconian".
Ms Wright said the protesters had been put under a "metaphoric microscope" by police.
Outside court, Speak spokesman Mel Broughton said: "I am extremely angry and disturbed about what has been revealed of the attitude of Thames Valley Police.
"I think anyone in the country who believes you have a right to protest and a right to free speech should be very, very concerned."
Referring to police comments about Oxford University, he added: "These two extremely powerful institutions are prepared to get into bed with each other to frustrate lawful protest."
Thames Valley Police Deputy Chief Constable Alex Marshall said: "I have listened to what the judge has had to say and I take her comments very seriously and will now review this case to see whether there are any disciplinary matters that need to be dealt with.
"There are comments on the tape that I find very regrettable and I find some of the comments unprofessional. I will take careful note of what the judge has said and see if there are any matters which arise from it."
Referring to the comments about Oxford University, he added: "Those are the comments of a constable after an operation. There's no collusion."
A spokesman for Oxford University said: "While we are in regular dialogue with the police, operational matters are entirely within their jurisdiction, and are not a matter for the university."
9:51pm Wednesday 30th May 2007
Deputy Chief Constable Alex Marshall
THANKS ALF!!!
I am so grateful and proud of the people w/ the banner.
And don't give up or leave Alf, I know at one time you had expressed a sort of disheartening, a want to give up, why bother. I forget the exact wording, or even the descriptive word.... but please don't. I won't, no matter if our cause seems futile, it really IS NOT.
It is never too late to do the right thing. Martin Luther King Jr.
THANKS ALF! I APPRECIATE EVERYTHING YOU DO FOR THE ANIMALS. THEY WOULD JOIN IN WITH ME IN TELLING YOU HOW GRATEFUL WE ARE........SO.......DON'T EVER STOP.........WE NEED YOU AND THE ANIMALS NEED YOU DESPERATELY.
READING ABOUT RESEARCH ON ANY ANIMAL MAKES MY BLOOD RUN COLD....................AND THEN BOIL!
xxxx
Today it is with much regret that we must inform everyone of the death of Felix. The information we have been given is that he has been killed by those that tormented and tortured him for almost a year.
It
is difficult to comprehend the type of person that can perform barbaric
and gruesome procedures on a living sentient creature for an entire
year. This person, if that is indeed the correct word for such an
individual (monster, would probably be more apt), is capable of looking
into the eyes of an innocent non human victim everyday but yet is
incapable of feeling pangs of remorse or even sympathy with regards to
the pain and suffering they are inflicting on an individual capable of
a full range of emotions from fear, to pain through to happiness.
Unfortunately Felix would certainly have experienced no happiness in the last year of his sad life at Oxford University, but if truth be told, he probably was never able to experience happiness or any sort of joy in his entire life. It now appears that he was born in a cage. He lived in a cage and he ultimately suffered in a cage before being put to death alone in a cage.
Let’s not forget, Oxford University have the audacity to label themselves as an institution of ‘academic excellence’! However, the reality is that the life Felix was forced to endure has nothing to do with 'academia', but everything to do with arrogance; an arrogance of individuals who hold life so cheap, that they can dictate not just how and when to end a sentient life, but how much suffering they can and will inflict upon that life.
Despite what university representatives might say, Felix's final few months would have been filled with pain, torment, and much, much suffering. There’s no hiding this fact and people should be made aware as to what exactly Felix went through in his final months. We can now disclose that Felix had the top of his skull sliced off, a procedure that has been documented through human and non human primate research as extremely painful. Electrodes were forced into his brain and then he was fitted with a cranial chamber (a box like contraption that sits on top of the skull). His pain must have been unbearable but he had no one to comfort him. Just a barren cage surrounded him, there were no comforts. There was no kin to cuddle up to, to ease his pain. He was alone until the day his torturers had finished with him; the day they put him to death.
Very sad. A shame. It is disgusting how the "most prestigous" universities are the very ones that lack compassion and empathy. How intelligent can a person really be lacking such necessary qualities? It sickens me.....It makes me sad and extremely disappointed that such qualities are not included in intelligence tests......
This is from the SPEAK website, it just goes to show what can be done if you don’t give in.
One more step towards enlightenment.
“Whilst SPEAK do not normally post news from outside sources, we felt the press release below merits a special mention within our campaign. The article reports the closing of a primate research centre in Santiago, Chile. The research centre is owned by a university, and the similarities between this campaign and ours are obvious. It highlights the achievements that can be accomplished through persistance and dedication. At SPEAK there is no shortage of either virtue, and we say that if the activists in Chile can do it, so can we! Well done...”
report
http://www.speakcampaigns.org/articles/20080205chileresearchctr.php
