Re: animal rights campaigners jailed | Forum

Merrick wrote:

Popel Vooje wrote:

Property desctruction is necessary evil in order to publicise the issue

I think there's a major misunderstanding here. Who said it was about raising publicity? They didn't send out any press releases or anything, and appear to have tried to stay secret.

It wasn't about publicity, it was a direct attack on the company. It was an attempt to intimidate people out of working for the animal testers and thereby make the company harder to run.

Raising publicity is an inevitable by-product of attacking those connected with animal labs, regardless of whether or not press releases are sent out. Whether or not the resulting publicity is good or bad is a matter for debate, but the fact that we're discussing HLS here now is proof that it exists. Both the liberal and right-wing press love to jump on incidents like this, and I find it very hard to believe that those involved weren't media-savvy enough to realise that (not that this is in any way a criticism.

It wasn't just personal attacks on the company that caused the Hillgrove cat farm to be closed down - the repercussions such attacks had in terms of public awareness simply made the insitution too unpopular to be a going concern any more.

I do agree with the rest of your points, however.