Justice Department (animal rights)

From Freepedia

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Animal liberation
Activists
Greg Avery  · David Barbarash Steven Best  · Rod Coronado Barry Horne  · Ronnie Lee Keith Mann Ingrid Newkirk  · Alex Pacheco Robin Webb
Organizations
Animal Aid Animal Liberation Front BUAV Great Ape Project Justice Department PETA  · SPEAK SHAC
Issues
Animal rights · Animal testing Covance Declaration on Great Apes Factory farming  · Fur farming Huntingdon Life Sciences Speciesism  · Vivisection
Writers
Steven Best Jeremy Bentham Stephen Clark  · Tom Regan Richard D. Ryder Peter Singer
Category
Animal liberation movement

The Justice Department is a militant animal-rights organization, set up in Britain in 1993, and active there and in the United States. It has claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks in the UK, which The Independent has called "the most sustained and sophisticated bombing campaign in mainland Britain since the IRA was at its height."

The organization uses the same leaderless-resistance model as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, with small groups of individuals, or just one individual, acting as autonomous covert cells. Activists have sent out letter bombs, which have injured several people, and envelopes rigged with poisoned razor blades.

In January 1996, the Justice Department claimed responsibility for sending envelopes with blades soaked in rat poison to 80 researchers, hunting guides, and others in the United States, and British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. A note inside the letters read: "Dear animal killing scum! Hope we sliced your finger wide open and that you now die from the rat poison we smeared on the razor blade." [1] David Barbarash, a Vancouver-based activist, who became North American spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front, was charged in connection with the attacks, but the case against him was dropped.

The Justice Department manifesto, which is posted on the ALF website, says: "The Animal Liberation Front achieved what other methods have not while adhering to nonviolence. A separate idea was established that decided animal abusers had been warned long enough. ... [T]he time has come for abusers to have but a taste of the fear and anguish their victims suffer on a daily basis."

See also

• Animal Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group
• Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
• Robin Webb, Steven Best, David Barbarash
• Peter Singer, Tom Regan
• Barry Horne
• Animal rights, Animal testing

References

• "From push to shove" Southern Poverty Law Group Intelligence Report, Fall 2002, p.3

Further reading

• Animal Liberation Front website
• Arkangel magazine, a magazine dedicated to animal liberation
• FBI testimony on the ALF, James F. Jarboe before the House Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, February 12, 2002.