Seeing as SHAC is a lawful public group, whose members are well-known to the authorities, I doubt it somehow.

Now you are descending into self-parody.

Thanks for doing my job for me by making yourself look like a raving lunatic.

I thought I'd heard all the ludicrous stories about animal rights bogeymen, but this takes the biscuit.

You really think animal rights activists would string up a wire where it would injure a horse?

Even if you think they would want to injure some lard-arsed tourist weighing down some poor unfortunate pony, which I doubt, that is just such nonsense I'm lost for words.

Do people genuinely believe these stories? Have they no critical faculties left?

It sounds to me more like someone with a personal grudge against the pony trekking centre.

They are the first terrorists I've heard of that have never killed a single person.

How much terror do animal abusers inflict on animals every day?

Would you care to tell me who has been murdered for the cause of animal rights? No, you can't, because no-one ever has, unlike the several animal rights activists who have been killed by animal abusers.

Which is more cowardly - to stand idle while animals are being abused, or to risk your liberty trying to stop that abuse?

Animal abusers really are the lowest of the low. How anyone can inflict suffering on an animal I'll never understand. Abusing animals is true cowardice.

I've news for you - the meat industry and farms have been attacked on a regular basis for many decades. Take a look at this direct action site for some recent examples.

Er, no, SHAC are a perfectly lawful organisation, which are still happily functioning, as you can see from their website.

If they were "terrorists", they would have been shut down.

Nonsense on stilts. The whole point of SHAC is to stop the terrorizing of animals by Huntingdon Life Sciences who, for example, force feed weedkiller to beagles.

SHAC, and myself, are neither luddites nor anti-science. I am fully supportive of the scientific method. I just don't think it is right to inflict pain on sentient beings in the process.

Belief in animal rights and belief in science are totally orthogonal issues.

I'm at a loss why you would think SHAC or the ALF want to hurt engineers, unless they are building some kind of device for torturing animals?

Actually, that's not quite true.

The people who committed harassment were never found or charged, and there was no evidence that those imprisoned knew who they were.

The SHAC activists who were imprisoned were the ones running the lawful campaign, and they were convicted of "conspiracy to blackmail" precisely because they hadn't actually broken any real laws.

It was a clearly politically motivated attempt to silence an effective campaign - although the SHAC campaign is still going strong, I might add.

To start with, the people in jail weren't harassing anyone. They were running a legal campaign and were charged with a political offence - "conspiracy to blackmail" - precisely because they were not guilty of any genuine illegal acts.

This case was "guilt by association", which people should see as a worrying development, whatever your views on animal rights.

Secondly, employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences certainly did get harassed, by persons unknown.

Companies that did business with Huntingdon Life Sciences certainly did get illegally harassed.

As I recall, it was either customers of HLS - primarily chemical and pharmaceutical companies that contracted HLS to feed their wares to animals, or suppliers of HLS - companies who provided them with essential services for their business - who were targeted.

The SHAC campaign just carried out peaceful demonstrations at offices and encouraged people to write to the companies.

The people who were harassed - and again, not by the people who have been imprisoned - were generally directors and other high-up decision makers in the company.

Corporations are explicitly set up as faceless fronts for people to hide behind while they do their dirty work. Why shouldn't the people behind them who are doing nasty things like abusing animals be exposed?

What if animal rights activists set up a corporation behind which they did illegal things? Should the police just target the corporation and leave the people behind it alone?

I believe this is factually incorrect. Can you point me to a website that posts addresses of people to write to, and also posts messages from people who have attacked people at the same addresses? I don't think you can, because none of these websites do such a thing.

How the hell did this piece of establishment diatribe get modded +5 informative?

ALF - Animal Liberation Front - a umbrella name for an unconnected group of compassionate people prepared to break the law and risk their liberty to defend animals from abuse. They have a strict policy of non-violence to any animals, including humans.

SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty - a lawful group that campaigns against hideous abuse of animals at Huntingdon Life Sciences, who have been exposed numerous time for punching beagles, force-feeding them weedkiller, and torturing monkeys.

SPEAK - A group campaigning against a new animal torture facility in the heart of Oxford, UK.

PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - a large mainstream animal rights group, that nevertheless recognises that some people will break the law to help animals in suffering.

BUAV - British Union of Anti-Vivisectionists - a formerly radical but now wishy washy group whose main activities are lobbying politicians, who get much larger bribes from drug companies anyway.

I totally agree with you there.

The violent abuse of animals in laboratories, the intimidation of animals in circuses and zoos, and extreme torture and killing of animals on farms has to stop if humanity is going to become truly progressive.

What's with all this "anti-science" nonsense?

Where does it say to be pro-science you need to believe in the torture of animals?

I'm a pro-science as anyone, and I think anyone who denies the blatantly obvious fact that animals are sentient beings that feel pain is clearly putting their own prejudices and bigotry before scientific reality.

I haven't read such a nonsensical and plain untrue post for a long while.

SHAC, PETA and SPEAK are all perfectly legal groups; if they weren't, they would have been shut down.

The SHAC people were convicted of "conspiracy to blackmail" not for anything they did, but purely for the illegal actions of others, who were unknown to them.

It was a purely political show trial to imprison the legal side of the campaign because it was getting too successful, and because they didn;t know who was breaking the law.

In further news, black is white and white is black? Of course they are all pro animal rights, that's the whole reason for the campaigns. Do you really believe what you say, or are you just a self-parody?

And they are certainly pro-science. I am a firm believer in the scientific method, I just don't think it's right to torture and kill sentient creatures in the process.

That's just like saying if you disapprove of scientists experimenting on humans without their consent, you must be anti-science. Totally ludicrous logic.

The current mass-scale industrialised abuse of animals that goes on in our society in factory farms and laboratories is the real Dark Age from which animal liberationists are trying to pull us.

Hahahahahahaha! Thanks for that comedy, I haven't had a laugh like that for a while.

Oh, wait... you're serious?

Judges are all part of the establishment, they all went to the same posh schools and dinner clubs as the politicians and captains of industry.

That would be because SHAC is a perfectly legal group that campaigns against disgusting animal abuse at Huntingdon Life Sciences.

The offending post was the private address of a judge. There was no incitement to harass, although it is against Indymedia policy to show personal details, so it was removed.