List of acts claimed by the ALF

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This is a list of acts claimed by the Animal Liberation Front.

Contents 1 Background 2 1998 3 1999 4 2004 5 2005 6 2006 7 2007 8 Notes

[edit] Background

Main article: Animal Liberation Front

Early ALF covert operations tended to focus on the removal of animals from vivisection laboratories. In recent years, these have extended to vandalism, arson, and making threats against individuals who directly or indirectly work for organizations the ALF has targeted.

[edit] 1998

August

The ALF claimed responsibility for releasing into the wild up to 6,000 mink from a mink farm in Ringwood, UK.^[1] About 2,000 of the minks were immediately recaptured, another 2,000 were killed and the rest remained unaccounted-for at the time the incident was reported. Anti-fur activists denounced the action as "a disaster for the [anti-fur] campaign, and it's a disaster for the mink". The action was described by a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds spokesman as an "act of monumental stupidity,"^[2] amid fears that the non-native carnivorous minks would cause ecological damage. The ALF said it would continue its campaign until the British government introduced new animal-welfare legislation for animals used by the fur industry.^[3]

[edit] 1999

November

In 1999, British documentary-filmmaker Graham Hall told police and the Mail on Sunday that he was kidnapped and branded with the letters "ALF" across his back after meeting a man claiming to have information on a dog-fighting ring and filming ALF activists "boasting about bomb making and choosing sites for violent attacks."^[4][5] His film was shown on Channel 4 in the UK during the 1998 hunger strike of ALF activist Barry Horne. Hall said he was taken by several masked men, one of whose voices he said he recognized from a previous gathering of activists, to an unknown house, then was tied to a chair for several hours and branded. No charges were laid as a result of his complaint. In response to the attack, Robin Webb stated "The ALF's policy has always been that there should be no harming life in its work, and we abide by that. There are probably many people with grudges against Mr Hall because of his films over the years, but this attack has nothing to do with us."^[5]

[edit] 2004

November 14

Seashore Hall, at the University of Iowa, was broken into.

[edit] 2005

March

An ALF raid on a mink farm in Rome, Italy, on March 16, 2005 saw 2,000 mink released.

May

A Vancouver-based brokerage announced that it had dropped a client, Phytopharm PLC, in response to the May 26, 2005 ALF firebombing of a car belonging to Canaccord executive Michael Kendall in London, England.^[6] The ALF stated on its website that activists had placed an incendiary device under the car, which was in Kendall's garage at home when it caught fire. Phytopharm was targeted, as were those doing business with it, because it had business links with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS).

June

The ALF warned Phytopharm to stay away from Huntingdon or "see your share price crash and your supporters property go up in flames,"^[7] and issued the following statement:

A new era has dawned for those who fund the abusers and raise funds for them to murder animals with. You too are on the hit list: you have been warned. If you support or raise funds for any company connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire.^[8]

[edit] 2006

August

As a result of ALF's targeting of UCLA researcher Lynn Fairbanks, and after his personal information had been posted on the Primate Freedom Project at UCLA website^[9] and receiving threatening phone calls, Dario Ringach, an associate neurobiology professor at UCLA, issued a statement in August 2006, that he would discontinue his animal research into visual processing. University spokeswoman Judy Lin was quoted in the press as saying "this is a problem that's much larger than UCLA. These groups have been harassing researchers all over the world," she continued "It has reached terrorist level. The university is very disturbed by this."^[10][11]

September

The ALF may also have a link to an attack on a fish farm near Oban, Scotland in September 2006 which led to the deaths of thousands of halibut.^[12]

December

In December 2006, Donald Currie, said to have been the ALF's most important bombmaker,^[13] was sentenced with a recommendation of at least six years, after conducting a fire bomb campaign targeting suppliers and customers of Huntingdon Life Sciences.^[14]

[edit] 2007

February

'Incendiary devices were found at Templeton College, Oxford; an ALF spokesman heralded it as a continuation of a campaign against Oxford University's proposed new biomedical center, which will house and conduct experiments on animals.^[15]

[edit] Notes