Protesters for and against animals testing have predicted an escalating conflict after the two sides clashed during weekend demonstrations in Oxford. Both groups pledged to step up campaigns which have already resulted in death threats aimed at advocates of animal testing and panic buttons installed at the home of a leading provivisetion protesters.
Pro-test, the group which orgnized the Oxford rally of scientists, students and patients, plans a march in London which it hopes will draw 5,000 supporters. A spokesman for speak, the animal rights group campaigning against a new animal research laboratory in Oxford said the Pro-test demonstration had left it "fired up" to take touch action.
Spokesman Mel Broughton said: "They should be worried, not because they are in any danger of violence, but because they have fired us up even more against them and the university." . . .
Many researchers stayed away from the march, fearing reprisals against them and their families. Professor Tipu Aziz, a leading neurosurgeon, said: "This country has thousands of researchers paralysed by fear. That's a travesty of democracy. " . . .
A spokesman for the animal Liberation Front, Robin Webb, yesterday described the Pro-test marchers as "irrelevant."
"The ALF supporters will completely ignore this protest group and will continue targeting institutions and companies which are directly involved in building the proposed facility," he said.
The medical Research Council's chief executive, Colin Blakemore, described the Pro-test demonstration as "immensely gratifying. For a long time, we have needed this kind of collective response. The people want this thuggery and nastiness off the streets of Oxford."