Animal Liberation Front

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Beagles removed by British ALF activists from a testing laboratory owned by Boots the Chemists. The ALF action ended with Boots deciding to sell the lab. Linda McCartney, first wife of Beatle Paul McCartney, bought the remaining beagles from the company and found homes for them.

The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an umbrella term used by animal-rights activists who engage in direct action on behalf of animals, or in protest at the animal-testing or meat industries. Any non-violent direct action that furthers the cause of animal liberation and is consistent with the ALF's stated aims may be claimed on behalf of the ALF.

Actions are claimed anonymously by contacting one of the ALF's press officers around the world, who publish their contact details in telephone directories and on the Web so that activists are able to reach them. In the UK, the ALF press office is run by Robin Webb. (See GANDALF trial.) Claims are also left on the website of Arkangel, the animal-liberation magazine. [1] (http://arkangelweb.org)

ALF cells operate clandestinely and independently of each other, with activists working on a need-to-know basis. A cell can consist of just one person.

Although the ALF does not exist as a group, the Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group (ALFSG) exists to provide financial and moral support to animal-rights protesters who are jailed for their activities, whether as ALF activists or not. The ALFSG publishes a regular newsletter with details of how to write to jailed activists so that members can offer emotional support. [2] (http://www.arkangelweb.org/barry/alf.shtml)

Contents

1 Overview, aims and origins

2 Property destruction and the ALF

Overview, aims and origins

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The logo of the Animal Liberation Front

The ALF was originally formed in the UK in the 1970s by animal rights activist Ronnie Lee, who had previously been involved with The Band of Mercy and the Hunt Saboteurs' Association.

The ALF's stated aims are:

to liberate animals from places of abuse, i.e. laboratories, factory farms, and fur farms, and place them in good homes where they may live out their natural lives free from suffering;
to inflict economic damage on those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals;
to reveal the horror and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors, by performing non-violent direct actions and liberations;
to take all necessary precautions against harming any human or non-human animal.

Although the ALF's stated aims include only non-violent direct action, its founder Ronnie Lee has written that "[a]nimal liberation is a fierce struggle that demands total commitment. There will be injuries and possibly deaths on both sides. That is sad but certain." [3] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/902751.stm)

The ALF has groups in a number of countries. The U.S. branch of the ALF has a relationship with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and has provided them with video tapes of animal experiments stolen from laboratories.

The BBC reports that there were 1,200 fire bombings, acts of vandalism, and physical attacks in the UK in 1999 connected to animal-rights activism. [4] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/902751.stm) According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1979 and 1993 there were 313 incidents of break-ins, vandalism, arson and thefts committed in the name of animal rights in the U.S..

Property destruction and the ALF

Early ALF actions tended to centre around the removal, or liberation, of animals from vivisection laboratories. The ALF has a stated policy of non-violence. However, in recent years, ALF activities have extended to vandalism, arson, and making threats against individuals who directly or indirectly work for organizations the ALF has targeted. ALF supporters state that this is intended to make what they call animal abuse as costly as possible. The ALF guidelines state that no ALF action should cause physical harm to any human or non-human animal, and any act that does so is not supported by the ALF and should not be claimed on its behalf. Critics say that this provides the ALF with plausible deniability in case anything should go wrong during an operation, leading humans to be injured or killed. (See also No true Scotsman.)

A group calling itself the Justice Department is believed to have been responsible for sending a number of letter bombs to individuals involved in fox hunting, the fur trade, or vivisection. Regarding another radical group, the Animal Rights Militia (ARM), Robin Webb has said: "The only difference between ALF and the more radical ones is that ALF basically take every precaution not to endanger life at any time. The Animal Rights Militia are prepared to twist the arm of animal abusers".

There has been conjecture within the animal-rights movement that the Animal Rights Militia and the Justice Department are state-sponsored agents provocateurs set up to discredit the ALF. An opposing view is taken by those who work in the vivisection or meat-producing industries, namely that ALF activists claim violent actions on behalf of ARM and the Justice Department in order to preserve the ALF's proclaimed non-violent stance.

According to media sources, ALF leaders refuse to condemn violence by people who have previously acted in the name of the ALF, so long as they attempt no attribution of their violent acts to the ALF. For example, when David Blenkinsop, together with two other men who remain unidentified, severely beat Huntingdon Life Sciences director Brian Cass outside his home with 'staves' or 'pick-axe handles', ALF founder Ronnie Lee said of the victim: "He has got off lightly. I have no sympathy for him." [5] (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=42)

Official ALF spokesperson Robin Webb said at the time: "The Animal Liberation Front has always had a policy of not harming life, but while it would not condone what took place, it understands the anger and frustration that leads people to take this kind of action." [6] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/02/24/nhls124.xml) The ALF Supporter's Group lists Blenkinsop as one of its prisoners of conscience. [7] (http://www.alfsg.org.uk/prisoners.html) The ALF's 'decentralized resistance' model of organisation, with no formal membership or hierarchy, thus acts as a formal firebreak in issues of legal and moral responsibility or accountability.

Actions

One of the most highly publicised activities by the ALF was the 1984 "Mars Bar campaign", during which the ALF issued statements claiming that bars of Mars chocolate for sale in supermarkets in the UK had been contaminated with bleach, in protest against the Mars Corporation's funding of dental research using monkeys. The incident was later revealed to have been a hoax, but it led to widespread criticism of the ALF and caused a split with the pacifist magazine Peace News, which had previously allowed the ALF to use its Nottingham office as a mailing address.

Attacks in the U.S. have been carried out at:

In 1998, the ALF claimed responsibility for releasing into the wild up to 6,000 minks from a mink farm in Ringwood, UK. [8] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/148120.stm) The action was described by a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds member as an "act of monumental stupidity," [9] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/148420.stm) amid fears that the minks would cause ecological damage. The ALF said it would continue its campaign until the government introduces new animal-welfare legislation for animals used by the fur industry. [10] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/153504.stm)

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a separate but related umbrella group, took responsibility for an arson attack on a mink research lab in Anthony Hall on the campus of Michigan State University on New Year's Eve in 1999.

References

Animal Liberation Front website (http://www.animalliberationfront.com/)
"Researcher Vows To Continue Work" (http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1992/june/devins_p3_920608.html), The Scientist (requires free registration)
Animal Liberation Front (ALF) Frequently Asked Questions (http://www.hedweb.com/alffaq.htm) by the North American ALF Supporters Group.
"Animal rights, terror tactics" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/902751.stm), BBC, August 30, 2000