Oxford anti-vivisection demo + important AR info

Today at Oxford 5 people were arrested. The police were bullies and intimidating. The police were shown to be incompetent and even unable to organise the coaches to pick up points....still brains was never their strong point.

Stay out of town you violent people. It was a good thing that 5 of you were arrested, let this be a message to all you antisocial people that you can not come and disrupt the peaceful life that we deserve to live in this town. Many thanks go out to the police who protected us from your rampage, despite what is written here they were very professional in the way they looked after our city and protected us from the disrespectful people who came from out of town. You are not welcome here. After today the people of Oxford will complain against this terrible breach of the peace and disturbance that was brought to town and hopefully you will no longer be allowed to protest here again. You have shown yourselves to be violent offenders and you do not deserve the right to protest here again. We can not trust that you come here in peace any more. You have made your point, now leave us alone and STAY OUT OF TOWN.

Animal Rights Extremists have taken to violence today. They ignored the directions of the police and were violent towards them, throwing stones and other projectiles, and destroying property and breaking down fences. They have shown complete contempt and disregard towards the community and shown to be completely antisocial in their attempts at bullying those who they disagree with. They have shown that violence is the only way they can put across their opinion. Today they created a dangerous environment and the police were forced to close the area to the law abiding public generating a great amount of inconvenience to many people. Do not believe the reports of these extremists who report the police as acting unprofessionally. The police acted to protect innocent people and to protect property. The animal rights extremists were alarmingly violent and caused much distress to the people on the streets of Oxford. The more violent they become in their outbursts, the less sympathy they are getting with the people who live here and people are becoming quite fed up with the way that they behave. They have lost their credibility and today's violence will only alienate them further from the community.

Today I saw several protestors shouting angrily into the ears of bystanders with their megaphones, no doubt this would create a great amount of pain to the recipient of this noise, and this shows the complete diregard and contempt that many of the protestors had towards other people. They see all people in Oxford as legitimate targets for their bad behaviour. This behaviour is becoming more and more distasteful as their protests continue. They have resorted to swearing and spitting at people who pass by and question what they are protesting about as though anybody who can not understand their point of view must be complicit in the building of the lab. They have forgotten that there is a world outside their own and they have become fanatical about the cause they have been swept up in. They seem to no longer understand how to treat people humanely. If they can not treat other people humanely, can we really expect any credibility when they argue about how animals should be treated?

First, most of the above comments can be ignored as anti-animal bollocks most likely paid for by Oxford uni and its cop-shop friends. (for the record, I saw one or two fences being pushed back and that's about it as far as the first comment's allegations go)

the police were scumfucks as per usual - TSG (or Oxford equivalent), horses, attack dogs, and around a thousand (or so am told) regular attempting to herd everybody around and occasionally stopping to hold us for no discernable reason. when they did attack it was often the older women at the front who got the consequences.

one criticism I would have is the number of protestors who spent their time when we got back to the city centre shouting at members of the public that they should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up against this. even speaking as someone who *does* care, if I got abuse for not being involved in one campaign or another my instinct would be to tell them to fuck off.

all the best,

- rasputin

The majority of the demonstrators were not violent, they did not throw stones . Yes the new lab is a very emotive subject and people feel strongy about it. Please do not tar all of us with one brush. I for one am a Psychology graduate, I respect education and science but abhor the unnecessary use of animals in laborotary experiments. I had to fight for my right to obtain a psychology degree without the persecution to animals .I know what goes on in these labs , I have been in them and seen it first hand. There are very few people who can hold a cat with electrodes implanted in its brain without a feeling of disgust and a realisation of the vivisection being wrong. I love Oxford , it is a wonderful town and the people who came on my coach would never show disrespect to the local inhabitants.

The police decided that once we were within 100m of the building site that they would prevent the march from proceeding - contrary to the previously agreed route. Also, no announcements of legislation such as changes to the Section 14 notice that was in place were made - so it appears the police acted illegally.

Examples of police acting in bad faith were:

When marching, one woman sat down on a window sill - obviously tired - she was promptly shouted at by an officer and grabbed. When asked what legislation he was using in order to tell that person to move - he stated that 'there are rules' and threatened me with arrest for 'obstructing the highway' - regardless that he himself was doing the same and the hordes of police along the way were doing so as well.

The day was quite a cold one so many people were wearing scalves, hoods and other winter clothes. At one point, an office ran into the crowd and shouted at one protester as he had his hood done up - which would cover his face. He then proceeded to grab the protester by the head and try to tear the hood off. Section 60 gives the police powers to remove items that are likely to be used for the sole purpose of hiding identity. This day was cold and *everyone* was wearing such clothing so this was an act of assault.

When the police stopped the march, they formed a line across the front, including riot police and a line of horses. They then formed a line at the back of the crowd - which marched towards us. This is an act of provocation. The police, at no time, gave an announcement asking for order, telling us what was going on or any other way informing us of any legal notices.

The entire day was mired with these attacks against our freedom to protest (the route itself was terrible - it went down a high walled, low use, side road with no possible audience). It cannot be blaimed if people were upset and acted in an innappropriate way.

Also, to clarify the 'threw missiles' and 'were violent' lines. The missiles consisted of badly aimed airhorns and placards. The violence appearred to consist of the crowd surging forward and then being beaten by the police.

I hope official complaints are going to be filed against the force due to the officers' inappropriate behaviour.

It really annoys me when people write rants and sign them with things like "Citizens of Oxford" as though they represent the whole city. What nonsense. I'm a student at Oxford Uni. I'm really glad the demo happened, even though it caused me personal inconvenience (all of the libraries were closed for the day). I have friends who went on the demo who are peaceful people who would not get involved in anything violent. I saw plenty of passers-by who were congratulating the protestors and telling them to "keep up the good work".

Everyone is entitled to express their own opinion but I wish people like "Citizens of Oxford" didn't claim to represent the opinions of others as well!

It is true that a small minority of violent idiots do occasionally do stupid and destructive things that do the animal welfare movement more harm than good by giving the media yet more excuses to vilify everyone who believes that vivisection is wrong. But I don't see anything wrong with standing up (peacefully) to the police if they're trying to disrupt a legal demonstration. I hope that the peaceful demos, lobbying, and other non-violent campaigning actions keep on happening, in Oxford and all over the country, until unnecessary and cruel animal experimentation is finally brought to an end.

Danny (a citizen of Oxford)

"First, most of the above comments can be ignored as anti-animal bollocks most likely paid for by Oxford uni and its cop-shop friends. (for the record, I saw one or two fences being pushed back and that's about it as far as the first comment's allegations go)"

Nice to see that, rather than try to maturely respond to some probably vaild criticisms of the animal rights protesters, you instead dedide to just deny their evidence and accuse them of being paid by either the vivisectionists or police (why do protest groups, particulary the more extremist types, continue to believe that there are secret policemen just round the corner, consipring to discredit them?)

Well I for one am against ALL violence, be it committed by the police or protesters, and if either party were doing the things they have been accused of, then shame on you.

Well, Thames Valley Police were real charmers- not.
No one was kicking off, yes it was a peaceful demo.
I am surprised idiots who support the vivisectors log on to a website like this- can't really see how anyone with libertarian principles would support vivisection.

Going to try and upload a couple of photo's which demonstrate very clearly the police state principles supporting the dreadful torture scientific un-progress known as vivisection

photo attached

Police recieve a tip-off that animal rights activists are suspected of....
wanting to buy a book

Yesterdays demo in Oxford was well attended and bloody excellent, a taste of things to come for the perverted, sick, animal torturers of Oxford.
Like one speaker said at the demo "the police are irrelvent". True.
Fuck them and Fuck their law.
We WILL Win!

To the conserative bastards of Oxford.
I am greatly offended by the arrogant aswell as ignorant comments you have placed on this page. They have infuriated me as i have been brutaly and unfairly arrested as well as had acts off poilce brutality used against me countless amounts of times, i feel you have not aknowledge what protesters have put up with for decades, is it any wonder we result to self defence! I think your comments are extreamly unthought out as you have failed to consider all of the aspects involed in peacful protest. one is that a meaninful peaceful protest can no longer exsist in todays ever growing totalitarian society, thanks to the government and police through law and legitimate violance they have made it near impossible for the people who care to conduct a protest that can have any impact on the happenings they are trying to stop! Common sense, it is inevitable that if you oppress people they will lash out, so you should really be taking this up with the authorties who with the exscuse of the hundreds dead through so called terrorism, are using it to their advantate to take away our civil liberties that we struggled for hundreds of years to get (M.L.K and Ghandi ring any bells). SICK! My opinion is that you should participate in an anti-capitalists protest of some sort and see for your selves exactly how proffesional and protective the pigs are, if you still want to post comments like those after you have seen the real behaviour of the the poilce, be my guest. Just dont go round bad mouthing the campaign till you actually know what the hell you are talking about. I understand your day may have been disturbed by the protest and for that i am sorry, but it is quite selfish of you to complain as it is only one day for you, for the animals, its there lives and this is what its all about. My final word to you is that if you dont like the protests, arrange to do something els, its really that simple!
I also wanted to say well done to all who attended, unfortunatly i could not come but i look forwards to seeing you all on the 22nd of april. Keep up the solidarity and good work and those evil people will not have their torture house!
loads of pixie love xxxxx

I wanted to add every time I have joined a demo in Oxford I have witnessed very much support from locals. Only yesterday when a group of protestors were gathered outside the cop shop there was nothing but good words from those passing and driving by.

Lovely to see that you lot can't acknowledge the fact that some people might genuinely disagree with you- dissent sponsored by Oxford University my arse! Academics have better things to do than concern themselves with your unscientific rantings. I, however, am a student who can't finish my essay this weekend til Monday because of your 'protest' closing the Oxford libraries yesterday. Very clever of you to schedule for first week of term when many students are trying to return after the holidays- not. Yet again, the protestors show no concern for the ordinary student members of both the universities in Oxford and are hell-bent on causing as much annoyance and disruption as possible. Way to make people sympathetic to you... oh wait, the students aren't.

Polls done last term showed something like 85% of students at Oxford are pro the animal lab being built. That's 85% of the cleverest young people in this country who think you're all talking out of your arses. Claiming animal research hasn't helped a single medical/scientific discovery be made is simply laughable. My eleven year old sister can tell you that's not true, even with the most rudimentary knowledge of scientific experimentation. Ever heard of Pavlov? Skinner? Oh wait... animal rights protestors don't think human benefits count. That's because (in general) they don't think at all.

We're winning this, the lab will be built, the experiments will continue and the animals will be housed in BETTER CONDITIONS once it is finished. That's the most laughable thing of the whole situation- the new lab is designed to hold the animals more humanely! The same experiments will continue as before, just the animals will have better designed living environments! Morons.

Thankfully I'm a student with some intelligence who will get my degree and then get a decent job instead of spending my time screaming at people with loudspeakers and claiming to hate violence while smashing down police barricades, breaking the law, throwing things and putting people in danger.

For photos of the demo and arrests please see
 http://www.speakcampaigns.org.uk/news/20060115rumbled.php

Extract from below - (police force being run by two key figures at Oxford University (Lord B, chairman of the local Thames Valley Police Authority, and BS, a local magistrate member)"




YOU’VE BEEN RUMBLED! - National Demo Report

National demonstration called by SPEAK saw 500 people march through the streets of Oxford in opposition to the plans by Oxford University to build a new animal torture centre. It was an impressive turnout, particularly given that it was a wet, cold and windy day. Spirits were high and the collective opposition to Oxford University’s plans was self-evident; protesters made it clear that – if necessary - they were prepared to fight the building project every inch of the way.

The demonstration was one of many that have been organised by SPEAK in the two years since the campaign was formed in Oxford. On each occasion, SPEAK have entered into negotiations with the Police, and each time, demonstrations have passed peacefully and without incident. This has been due in no small measure to the discipline and self-restraint shown by protestors, despite provocation on many occasions by Thames Valley Police officers, who were clearly looking for a confrontation.

SPEAK has made it clear from the start of our campaign in Oxford that our fight is with Oxford University and their plans to expand their animal torture facilities, and not with Thames valley Police, yet the police made a mockery of the term unbiased policing during yesterday’s demonstration. Having offered a mutually agreeable route to SPEAK officials at meetings early on in the negotiations 2 months ago and again just last week, they reneged completely on this agreement. In the event, what transpired was the unwarranted and brutal provocation of those participating in the afternoon’s events.


The demonstration made its way into South Parks Rd, campaigners who had proceeded in an orderly fashion for a quarter of a mile were confronted by barriers across the road into which they had been promised access; the route was further barricaded by a cordon of police. As protestors tried to exercise their democratic right to peacefully protest and get to the allotted meeting area promised to them by Thames Valley Police, they came under a sustained and brutal attack by police officers, who indiscriminately attacked woman, children, the elderly and infirm. Women were thrown to the ground, peaceful protestors were kicked whilst lying on the ground and one campaigner sustained suspected broken ribs. Despite this unprovoked assault on a legitimate protest, the protestors were able to maintain their ground and refused to be intimidated by the attempts of Thames Valley Police to suppress the legal demonstration.


Turn of events did not come as a complete shock, as SPEAK has learnt not to trust a police force in which officers involved in negotiations promise one thing and deliver entirely another on the day, nor indeed to trust a police force being run by two key figures at Oxford University (Lord B, chairman of the local Thames Valley Police Authority, and BS, a local magistrate member), whose influence and pro-Oxford university sympathies are clearly likely to constitute a clear conflict of interest.

Until yesterday’s demonstration, SPEAK had been unable to prove that Thames Valley Police are a police force whose neutrality has been compromised by the influence of Oxford University. SPEAK now have in their possession audio evidence that shows without doubt that the trouble, which erupted at Saturday’s demo, was solely down to the lies of Thames Valley Police force at the earlier meeting. This audio evidence will shortly be made available for people to listen to.


There can be no doubt that the officers present at the last meeting we had with Thames Valley Police on the 5th January were lying to SPEAK members, when they negotiated and agreed to the route the demonstration was to take, and never had any intention of keeping to that agreement. Police had promised that the demonstration would stop outside the partially built animal research laboratory, where we would be allowed to congregate for 30 minutes in order to listen to speakers. The chief police negotiator is clearly heard saying on the audio evidence “It would be unreasonable of us (Thames Valley Police) to say you can’t go to the site (the partially built lab).” At 36 minutes and 10 seconds into the meeting Thames Valley Police negotiator commented: “Good news, you are going to the site”!


There is no doubt that historically, mishandling by police during demonstrations over issues which invoke deep feelings can result in passions being inflamed and people resisting the repressive measures against their legal right to protest in a democracy – indeed, their right as human beings to express a deeply-felt opinion. The police tactics - coupled with the presence of horses, over which we have repeatedly expressed our concerns as being an inflammatory factor – can only lead one to draw the conclusion that their actions on Saturday, were designed for maximum provocation. Hardly the sterling sort of stuff one should expect from an un-corrupt police force…

But who said anything about un-corrupt? For months, we have highlighted numerous incidents in which Thames Valley Police have shown a clear bias in favour of the abusers. Most notoriously, of course, there is their failure – or refusal – to prosecute an Oxford University professor for cruelty to a primate. We have documented two assaults on a 70-year old protestor, witnessed by police officers, who turned a blind eye to both incidents. We have catalogued numerous assaults by police officers on protestors, and just last week were able to photograph police officers dragging a peaceful campaigner from his car – a man who had committed no crime, and whom they later released without charge.


Thames Valley Police describe their operation against animal rights protestors as “Operation Rumble”. Well, chaps, this time YOU’RE rumbled…so far, you’ve proved that you’re little more than lackeys dancing to the beat of Oxford University’s drum. Isn’t it time you sorted out your code of ethics?

We say once again: we are not here to fight the police – we are here to fight against cruelty. We are here to fight against cruelty to animals on our terms, not according to the twisted dictates of a corrupt institution. The police have proven that they are not prepared to be impartial – that they are not prepared to uphold the law and the rights of individuals to democratic and peaceful protest, and the simple right upon which they themselves agreed – to allow peaceful protesters access to the object of their protest. It is because of their intransigence and their duplicity, and ONLY because of it – that the events of the day were thus marred.


The violence that took place on Saturday should spur us forward; that such events took place can only serve to fuel our determination to forge ahead, for we know BECAUSE of these events that we are tantalisingly close to victory, despite the sluggish resumption of work on the animal abuse lab. We KNOW that such resistance from the authorities is because they fear and know we possess the power to change things. We are the movers and the shakers of the 21st century – ALL OF US – and we can and must stay committed and focussed on our goal – we won in Cambridge, and we can win in Oxford. And the sooner we do that, the sooner we can move onto the next target, and the next, and the next one after that until the words ‘vivisection: abolition of’ are read in history books alongside the story of the movement for the abolition of slavery, many of whose champions were also totally opposed to vivisection.



For photos of the demo and arrests please see
 http://www.speakcampaigns.org.uk/news/20060115rumbled.php

That's brilliant news that your timetable has been screwed up!! Fantastic!! Another victory against the stiffs that seek to be only cogs in the state machine!!

"Back of the net!".

Bye!

To the Oxford Uni Student
If 85% of you at Oxford want the vivisection lab just reaffirms that the upper middle classes are arrogant shits.
There is nowhere that animal rights protestors have said all animal experiments have failed to mark any medical "progress" they just highlight the many ineffective results of experiments on animals and the fact it is highly unethical. If you are so clever why can't you put some time in to coming up with alternatives to torturing animals?

"That's 85% of the cleverest young people in this country who think you're all talking out of your arses"


Hahahahahahaha! Thanks for that "Pro-Science", that put a smile right on my face.

You can't be that bright if you think vivisectors have a monopoly on science.

"That's brilliant news that your timetable has been screwed up!! Fantastic!! Another victory against the stiffs that seek to be only cogs in the state machine!!"

Ethereal, I hardly think you could claim the average student to be a "stiff". We're young, motivated, intelligent people who want to educate ourselves by reading and learning. I'm sorry that you think denying people access to libraries constitutes "victory" and can only assume that you place no value on knowledge. That's really a shame for you.

Barky, my father doesn't have a Porsche. What a ridiculous, pointless assertion.

I am interested in alternatives to animal experimentation- for example, haptics- virtual reality models for medical research. Animal experimentation is comparatively expensive and a hassle for researchers, however they use it when necessary BECAUSE IT WORKS. Hopefully one day all research will be computerised, this will be great in terms of efficiency. That day is still far off, however. We need a far better idea of how animals bodies work before we can create accurate models of them.

Again, that's sad that you think having an opinion which differs from your own on vivisection makes them an "arrogant shit". The fact is, though, the general population of the UK doesn't share your views on the ethics of using animals- the vast majority eat meat. They love a nice juicy steak, they love the feeling of slipping on their new knee-length leather boots.

You lot were out in Turl Street again- was that demonstration given permission? I expect not. Who were you trying to harrass this time? Pathetic.

If anyone on this site wants to organise a PRO vivisection march with me, leave a message here. Should be fun. Pro vivisection, pro science all the way!

Dear Pro-Science

You said

”the lab will be built, the experiments will continue and the animals will be housed in BETTER CONDITIONS once it is finished.”

”The same experiments will continue as before, just the animals will have better designed living environments!”

Since you are the only person who has mentioned the living conditions of the animals could you please give more specific details about the current living conditions of the animals and the expected improvements you refer to? How will their living conditions now compare to the new conditions? If there are improvements what will they be. In what way are living conditions as they are now requiring improvement?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you.

For those of you who are pro science but anti vivesection then take a look at this website to see non animal alternatives.
www.curedisease.com

"If anyone on this site wants to organise a PRO vivisection march with me, leave a message here. Should be fun. Pro vivisection, pro science all the way! "

Yeah, I'll come. We can chuck a few things and fight with the police! Brilliant! We can even get Richard D North to give a little talk.

Before you start saying that because youre at oxford you are instantly one of the cleverest people in th country you should maybe open your eyes and see that not everyone is as lucky as you. Some people dont get the encouragement or schooling needed to get into oxford. Finance, family and situation also have a lot do to with it.You cant rate peoples opinions or 'cleverness' on what university they are at. You can get an extension on your essay, and your life isnt ruined because of this. The animals in that labs lives will be. Maybe if your had various experiments conducted on you, you might think differently
Dont be so patronizing when you dont even know what people are really angry about. What is clever anyway? I thought it was more about thinking for yourself than what everyone else thinks??????

I just thought I should apologise for the 'clever oxford student' being such an ignorant bastard.
I'm a student there too, were not all like that.
I promise.

Tom

just to clarify we are not looking for your sympathy we are looking for your support.i was not able to make the protest as i live on the south coast.but is it not clear to ALL the resident and students of oxford that holding an animal against its will and subjecting it to painful experiments is WRONG! and should not be tolirated. my message and i hope the message of all taking part in the protest is that we will be campaigning against this breach of animal rights as long as its taking place.and obviously its not that much of a pain in the arse to all the students at oxford as some of them turned up and alot more support the campaign. and your right it does work but so does putting shampoo (as a mild example) in your eyes to see if you go blind but you wouldnt like it done, would you! stop bitching about your essay and realise that when you bogged down in the shit of a capitalist society that your essay and the qualifications u gain from it mean shit all. and the products they test on these animals arent even for them, if you want it, you go through the pain of testing it!
lastly, this is a call to everyone reading this artical get to the next march on the 22 april( i will do) and if the train fair is the same as it is here then start saving, it will be worth it!
well done guys
love and solidarity

If you where so bloody cleaver you would be able to stop the protests and stop the closure of the the lab! BUT you cant and you wont. Its really sad to see how you think your so clever, when infact you just sound like brain washed, corrupted by money and instition. Exactly the unthinking individual that the authorities love, inorder to uphold the very laws that only hold us back as a society. If you 85% where so cleaver maybe you would see that there are more important things than career and money, such as life and freedome which we all diserve including all the animals of the world. So my opinion (in retaliation) is that you do think, but you think biased shit that your class has hammered into your head! Belive me i come from a rich background, I know the kind of shit they exspect you to confom to. Whos the cleaver one now, most of us can see its all ballshit but obviously 85% of you dont have a clue.
Thats partially why the world so messed up. THANKS!!!!!!!!!
And another THANKS for motivating me to bring along as much of Brighton as i possibly can on the 22nd april.
Come back when youv thought out your veiws with unselfish intentions!!!!!!!!!!!

I would firstly like to comment on the delightful “stay out of our town” particularly where you claimed that we are not welcome in YOUR town, regardless of how long you've lived there or how big your house is the streets belong to no one never mind a whole f***king town, and I’m sure one day in the future or maybe already in the past you've felt the need for your voice to be heard, i don't know maybe you wrote a letter to your MP with the naive belief it makes a difference, unfortunately we know it doesn't. People should stop looking at all protests as the same loony lefts forcing their opinions on people. It's an act of solidarity, that reminds governments and the police that the reason they have there jobs to give a service to us and that the streets are ours!!! And if us who are just as much a citizens as yourself collect in a couple of hundred and decide to take the streets back give me one good justification not to.
secondly to the writer of 'shameful' if the protest stopped you from doing your homework doesn't really support your claim of being one of the most clever people in the country does it? a couple of hundred people doesn't take up all of your town. And if you are so clever you too would be able to sincerely say that the majority of animal’s kept for testing are no reflection of human DNA as well as the harsh reality that disease exist for a reason.
But I can accept and understand where you’re coming from until your obvious toff tendencies come out. i am an activist i have been born with anarchistic views around me yet i will be going to university to study politics so not only are we not all stupid but just because some one doesn't go to uni doesn't make them stupid either thank you for proving middle class elitism. in fact the fact that you are so far up your own arse that you can't see that those people that your teacher tells you about due to their intelligence and their capability of thought they would never make comments insinuating that a large section of society are stupid. So don’t criticize us by saying “some people might actually disagree with you” no shit! We are the one constantly reminded its more worrying that people like you who have the government reaffirming your views making it harder for you to understand us rather then the other way round.

well it's all kicking off on here. Let's clarify a few things...

1. I'm a student. Like Tom above, I'm not a rich conservative wanker. Some of us students are. Some of us aren't. Some AR people are probably rich conservative wnakers! Please don't generalise us with your pathetic bigoted stereotypes, all this talk of "porsches and daddy" oh pleeeeeeeeeeeease. C'mon guys, the activist community are supposed to be decent people... I despair.

2. 10% of people generally are wankers. 10% of police, 10% of AR protestors, 10% of any protestors. I was protesting at the G8, I saw the police kicking it all off. I also saw police calming down situations in a proper manner. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. I'm fairly certain that there were several ALF idiots bent on causing violence the other day, and that is what they got. The hurting of old ladies was THEIR FAULT. I know that sometimes the police start things, and they piss us (by this I mean any demonstrators) off by changing routes of marches, but you've got to grin and bear it and NOT BE CONFRONTATIONAL!!! It is certain that if NOBODY did ANYTHING confrontational at a demo, the police wouldn't have a chance in hell of starting any violence if they wanted to. it's a two-way thing, so stop blaming just them, and sort out your own activists. If you see people causing trouble around you tell them to stop. Yeah I know people get passionate about issues like this, but a bit of self-control would solve so many problems. yeahhhh we could argue for aaaages about this issue, and it's not the most relevant one, so just leave it.

3. The person posting as "citizens of oxford" clearly doesn't have a point... but you can see that this is how you are alienating SO many people just like them by a minority behaving in this extremely violent way! The more that violence happens, the less people are going to support you; be peaceful! I know that most people were, but you need to organise demos that have less potential to get nasty. This is hard, but it can be done...
As I said 10% of people are wankers.

Right. I support the lab. I won't go into why.
*intake of breath as prepares for huge amounts of verbal abuse from bigoted idiots*

I also SUPPORT YOUR RIGHT TO PROTEST AGAINST IT, and feel your anger at the police making life EXTREMELY difficult for you. But that's what they do! It's their job (unfortunately) to make life difficult... as I said you've got to grin and bear it.

I really hope that this 22nd April demo goes well and passes without violence. This is an issue that needs discussing in detail in the press, but because of the violence they can't talk about anything else. It's just like the G8 all over again *sigh* Perhaps you should seriously consider a form of protest where you can't get boxed in by the police, i.e. not the bog-standard march where they can control you? Wide open space? Or just stay on broad street for the whole afternoon and have speakers there? Why not try and organise a public debate on vivisection with the university? OK I'm no expert on any of this, but it seems like all the demos so far have been the same-old march up and down outside the lab, does it really make any difference where you demonstrate?

maybe if you vary your tactics you'll have more success? Do something somewhere different! Outside the uni offices on wellington square? that's where all the people in charge work you know! Down on South Parks? A rally is a rally... and the more peaceful you can make it the more success you will have. good luck.

It always annoys me as a scientist, and opponent of vivisection, when people claim that their own pro-vivisection views are "pro-science". It only gives my profession a bad name. You are entitled to express your views, but assuming you speak for the whole of "science" is just as arrogant (if not more so) than assuming you speak for the entire city of Oxford.

Is the person who complained about not being able to get to the library because of the demonstration really wearing long trousers? He must have lived a very sheltered life if he hasn't yet grasped that there are occasionally wider concerns than whether he gets his essay in on time or manages to get to Tesco's - like free speech and the ability to express dissent about established scientific practices, perhaps? The demo wasn't aimed at you personally, honestly!

If the student feels that he was personally being targetted then hows about giving our old lawyer friend a ring ring ring and getting some good old fashioned english legal system remedy by claiming he was being harassed !

Why don't you lot just look at the bigger picture!!
Humans are suffering a terrible time here on Earth- the list is absolutely endless - the illegal occupation of Tibet by China, the illegal occupation of Iraq by the US and the UK, Palestine, Abu Ghraib, Guantanomo, the treatment of Pakistani Christians! Yet, the most you lot can do is complain about the rehousing of animals into better facilities in Oxofrd.
You should be utterly ashamed.
Most of the animals tested on are rats and mice- all anaesthetised.
Yet 80 billion animals a year are killed for food- unanaesthetised- but no one really complains. This is because it is easier to get to the intelligentsia, who are actually trying to benefit mankind, than the slaughterhouses.
Please stop this ignorance and protest about something worthwhile- for if you protest too long about this then the research will go to China- and boy, then the animals will siffer.