For Immediate Release December 18, 2002 Attention: News Desk World's
Largest Insurance Broker Abandons Dying Laboratory: Activists Declare Victory
(Worldwide) Animal rights activists are celebrating their second major
victory in less than a year with today's announcement that Marsh Inc., the
world's largest insurance company, will no longer provide insurance for
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). Activists have campaigned against Marsh
since February.
Property attacks against Marsh increased in the face of mounting
injunctions limiting aboveground protests.
The credit for this victory lies equally with those who smashed windows as
those held vocal protests outside Marsh offices and homes of executives,
states UK Animal Liberation Front Press Officer Robin Webb. Mr. Webb is
currently in the U.S. and available for comment at 732.545.7560.
The UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announced it will take over
the insurance brokerage for the controversial lab. In a similar move last
year, the Bank of England stepped in to provide Huntingdon with banking
facilities, as no commercial bank would offer the lab a bank account HLS
was unable to write checks to make bill payments. Providing government
facilities to a private business is an unprecedented move, prompted only
because no commercial business will align itself with Huntingdon.
After less than a year of campaigning, activists drove Stephens Inc., at
the time HLS's largest investor and primary financier, to sell all its
shares in the lab and relieve itself of a $33 million loan the company had
previously extended to HLS saving the lab from foreclosure January 29,
2001. On January 8, 2002, Stephens, the Nation's largest investment firm
off-Wall St., announced it would sever all ties to HLS.
As a result of the campaign, Marsh has sued dozens of activists and animal
rights groups in up to five U.S. cities, and dozens more have faced
criminal charges as a result of the campaign against Marsh worldwide. Three
activists are currently imprisoned in New York for property destruction at
the homes of Marsh directors.
Marsh threw everything they could at the animal rights movement, attempting
to deter protests, only to fail miserably, states activist Dave Elliot. No
lawsuit, private investigator, or criminal prosecution prevented this
victory. Until HLS is closed we will not apologize, we will not compromise,
and we will not relent.
Activists have now turned their attention to HLS's executive
infrastructure, targeting the directors of the lab and their business
affiliates. They vow to use the same strategy and tactics that have yielded
victory twice before.
See the direct action tactics that caused Marsh to drop HLS at
http://www.shac.net/ARCHIVES/2002/12/18b.html
Other activists may want to adopt these types of tactics.
Link: http://www.shacamerica.net/
