Hohlstrasse 481
8048 Zürich
Switzerland
Bus 31 bis Lugwegstrasse
http://autonomerbeautysalon.wordpress.com
15 years of SHAC – 10 years of repression:
Solidarity with the Blackmail 3 & SOCPA 7!
Wednesday 14th May @ Autonomer Beauty Salon
Hohlstrasse 481, Zurich. Food @ 7pm, Info @ 8pm
An infotalk & presentation from a UK ABC comrade providing a history of the global campaign to close HLS; the tactics used to bring a multinational corporation into $120 million of debt, and the five cases in the USA & UK so far imprisoning 19 activists to over 96 years (collectively) for their involvement in the grassroots movement.
Since 1999 Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) have campaigned for the closure of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe’s largest animal testing
facility; exposed numerous times for animal cruelty and malpractice.
With the growing success of the international movement, state repression also grew, subsequently imprisoning six activists in the US for a total of 23 years in March 2006, after indictments of terrorism against them and SHAC USA under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA) in 2004.
In May 2007, 32 people were then arrested in the UK for conspiring to blackmail HLS. In two separate trials, the first group of seven were sentenced to a total of 50 years in 2009 after the longest trial in UK history, the second group of six for nearly 18 years in 2010.
In June 2012 European arrest warrants charged three more people for conspiracy, known as the Blackmail 3; Debbie in the UK, and Natasha & Sven
in Holland. On 17th April 2014, Debbie was sentenced to 6 years in prison,
while Sven & Natasha appeal their extradition to the UK.
This is far from over! While the Blackmail 3 call for international solidarity, seven more activists known as the SOCPA 7 await trial in September 2014 after being arrested and charged for protesting.
They are accused of conspiracy to breach the Serious Organised Crime & Policing Act (SOCPA) Section 145 “interfering with a contractual relationship, so as to harm an animal research organisation”, and face up to 5 years each if convicted.
http://blackmail3.org/