STOP HUNTINGDON ANIMAL CRUELTY (SHAC) FORCES CANCELLATION OF CITY WEST VIVISECTION CONFERENCE

national | animal rights | news report

Wednesday March 12, 2003 18:06

by SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty

crian_cass_drop_dead at hotmail dot com

PO Box 4734, D. 1

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty have just received confirmation that The Institute of Animal Technology conference due to be held at Citywest Hotel in Ireland has been cancelled due to pressure from SHAC.

The IAT is the body representing thousands of UK animal technicians who work in laboratories,
inflicting suffering and killing the animals supposedly in their ‘care’. Numerous undercover
investigations have revealed animal technicians grossly abusing animals, the most well-known
instance of which is the footage obtained at Huntingdon Life Sciences of workers punching
beagle puppies in the face.

Steve Owen, a key employee of Huntingdon Life Sciences, was instrumental in organising the conference, and many HLS employees are members of the IAT.

CityWest Hotel have been the subject of relentless pressure from SHAC members worldwide ever since the information that they were due to hold the conference was leaked to SHAC. There have been mass phone calls and emails, and demonstrations at the hotel by irish activists joined by their UK colleagues. The hotel report stink bomb attacks on their premises and invasions of the hotel by animal rights activists on numerous occasions.

This cancellation has occurred despite leading UK scientists and directors of pharmaceutical companies writing many letters appealing for the hotel to withstand pressure from SHAC.
This victory comes just days after SHAC forced Deloitte & Touche, one of the world’s top 4 accountancy firms, to drop HLS and cease being their auditors.

Natasha Avery from Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty stated:
“Anyone who goes to work to inflict suffering on animals and kill them in pointless, unscientific experiments needs psychiatric help, not a holiday in Ireland. These people are deviants and we commend Citywest Hotel on making a compassionate decision to cancel this conference.”

ENDS
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Further info raken from www.shac.net:

Institute of Animal Torturers’ (don’t) Get Together

The IAT tried to hoodwink the hotel and without disclosing the nature of their organisation, or what was likely to happen to anyone hosting it, and tried to tie up the hotel up in a contract by paying them 114 grand when they booked, to ensure – or so they hoped – that CityWest would have no way of cancelling. You would think by now these people would realise that if they try to host their deviant get-togethers we will find out about it and track them down. Which is exactly what happened.

As soon as we got our hands on one of the IAT glossy leaflets advertising the event, we set to work tracking down where the conference was due to be held. It didn’t take long.

CityWest hotel in Dublin was identified and after email action alerts that led to relentless phone calls plus various demo’s and repeated stink bomb attacks that can’t have been very good for business, culminating in a joint UK-Irish demo where activists really got stuck in, plus conversations back and forth between SHAC and the Hotel people, CityWest made a compassionate decision and told the IAT that their get-together was not going to be happening on their premises. Incidentally the hotel owner and manager watched our video and said they were shocked at the animal cruelty they saw.

The IAT worked overtime on trying to get the hotel to go back on their word, getting ‘top’ scientists and pharmaceutical companies to contact the hotel and put pressure on them, and the hotel confirmed that they were getting loads of faxes and letters and it wasn’t going to make a blind bit of difference! When will all these sickos learn that decent, compassionate people hate their animal-killing activities and don’t want to be connected to them in any way. True to their word CityWest Hotel stuck to their guns and this morning the IAT sent out a whining press release about how extremists had forced them to postpone their ‘animal welfare conference’ (sick or what). The IAT press woman made quite a few choice comments to press that were passed on to the campaign: apparently she said that ‘the industry is spending millions on security when it should be spent on research’ and that the UK is being perceived as an increasingly hostile environment by the worldwide industry.

There is no security if you deal with HLS. There will always be someone, a so-called friend, a business colleague, a secretary maybe, or someone’s kids, a neighbour, who will pass us information and tip us off. Sooner or later you will come face to face with those whose sole mission in life is to grind HLS out of business, and when you do, you will come to realise that dealing with HLS is a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.