Legal

It's Your Right

SPEAK do not need to tell animal rights campaigners that there has been a marked shift in the behaviour of the police towards those wishing to exercise their democratic right to protest against something they object to.

With the creation of the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), it seems the government, police forces, and big businesses which rely on the exploitation of animals have combined their resources to try and stamp out the animal rights movement by whatever means necessary.

NETCU is headed by a Cambridgeshire police officer and “forms part of the national policing response to domestic extremism;" 'extremism' now meaning animal rights activities in particular, as few other movements are mentioned on their website.

A casual glance at the NECTU website and the links page in particular highlights the close associations that exist between the multi-national pharmaceutical corporations and the British Police force. Listed are groups and organisations that are nothing more than fronts for the pharmaceutical and vivisection industries. Most are directly financed by pharmaceutical and vivisection companies and their sole role is to be the mouth piece of multi-national companies.

Under the present Labour Government we are seeing the politicization of the British Police force, which now appear to exist not to protect the public, as should be their role in society, but to protect the interests of big business. This conflict of interest has been highlighted by SPEAK on numerous occasions and anyone who regularly visits the SPEAK website can see frequent, blatant examples of biased policing; whether it's the reneging of agreements, or police officers attacking 70 year old protestors, or the suppression of legitimate protest, as was the case on the 22nd July 2006, or the misinformation told to the media by the area commander of Oxford. And, SPEAK is not alone when it comes to harassment by police for legal animal rights related activities.

It all adds up to one indisputable fact: the animal rights movement needs to be fighting back.

SPEAK have begun to address this biased policing. This is unfortunate because it is something we should not have to be doing. While we have maintained from the start of the campaign that our focus is on stopping Oxford University abusing animals, we cannot ignore the fact that the government and the vivisection industry are trying to control our police force who are paid for with taxpayers' money. There is a problem and it needs to be both addressed and stamped out.

One of the first measures we have put into place to expose this problem has been the deployment of Evidence Gatherers at SPEAK events. It is our intention to draw up information packs so that the experience we are gaining can be shared with other groups, so they can, if they wish, take similar steps.

SPEAK has also set up a team dedicated to collating information on biased policing. But we need your help if we are going to make it a success. Primarily, we need you to send in any reports from your area if you have had any problems with police whilst campaigning for SPEAK.

Have you or your group ever been threatened with arrest for simply doing a stall, or for just giving out leaflets, or perhaps picketing a particular company? We want you to know about the problems you are experiencing; we want as much detail as possible - the police force involved, police officers' numbers etc. Don’t worry about sending us something that you feel is unimportant. What is important is that we have a clear picture of what is going on so that we can take action against police forces or individual officers who may be acting in an illegal fashion.

Freedom to speak out and protest against something we object to is still legal in this country. Let's do our part to protect these freedoms and ensure that everyone's rights will continue to be upheld no matter how much money big business throws at our government.

Please send any correspondence, along with photos or other pertinent materials to [email protected]

Disclaimer: The information on this website is for the purpose of legal protest and information only. It should not be used to commit any criminal acts or harassment.