SPEAK campaign

Founded	2003 (2003)
Founder	Mel Broughton
Type	Leaderless resistance
Focus	Opposition to animal testing
Area served	University of Oxford, England
Website	speakcampaigns.org

SPEAK (formerly known as SPEAK campaign) is a British animal rights group working to end animal testing in the UK.

History

In the early 2000s, SPEAC (Stop Primate Experiments at Cambridge) was formed by a coalition of animal rights groups to fight the construction of proposed labs by the University of Cambridge. In 2004, the university announced they would abandon building their proposed Primate Research Facility due to unacceptable financial risks resulting, in part, from the activities of protestors. The SPEAK campaign was a continuation and expansion of anti-vivisection efforts after the victory against Cambridge. "Migrating from Cambridge, the SPEAK campaign is to continue its role in the animal rights debate within the public and political arena through pro-active campaigning."

The campaign

Activists

The spokesman for SPEAK in Oxford is Mel Broughton, who has served time in prison for possession of incendiary devices with intent to bomb Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory, in connection with the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign. Other activists who have been named publicly are Robin Webb, who runs the Animal Liberation Press Office, and Amanda King, who was involved in the Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs campaign.

Allegations of violence

Although SPEAK only sanctions legal avenues of protest, the campaign has been accompanied by acts of intimidation, incitement, and violence, usually claimed by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Robert Cogswell, co-founder of SPEAK, has said the campaign neither condones nor condemns the actions of the ALF.

Incidents have included an arson attack on Hertford College boathouse; an attack on Corpus Christi College sports pavilion (which was, apparently, confused with Christ Church property); sending threatening letters to building firms connected with the construction project, the vandalism of other firms connected with the university, and threatening violence against Oxford University staff and students.

In December 2007, SPEAK spokesman Mel Broughton was charged with conspiracy to blackmail, two counts of possessing an explosive substance, and two counts of having an article with intent to damage, in connection with arson attempts at Oxford's Queen's College and Templeton College. At his 2008 trial he was cleared of possessing an explosive substance with intent, but the court was unable to reach a decision on the other charges. In 2009 he was convicted of conspiracy to commit arson and sentenced to 10 years by the Crown Court. After Broughton's conviction it was reported that police had infiltrated the ALF. According to The Times, the documents obtained by the infiltrator showed the "ALF drew funding from - and often had the same leaders as - ostensibly peaceful groups such as Shac and Speak, an animal rights body in Oxford led by Broughton."

Injunctions

In November 2004, Oxford University obtained an injunction against the groups SPEAK Campaigns, SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) and ALF (Animal Liberation Front). The injunction limited the size of protests and prohibited protesting or loitering within a certain distance from the university's grounds and the property of any of the contractors, university members, employees and their families, its shareholders, its contractor employees, shareholders and their families, and anyone who visits the research laboratory. It prohibited taking photographs of such people or their vehicles or speaking to them. The injunction followed mounting complaints from students, researchers and workers about the hours-long use of sirens and megaphones by SPEAK on an almost daily basis.

In May 2006, Oxford appealed to the High Court to extend the injunction after threats were made against the university by the ALF. The court ordered that the injunction be widened to extend the exclusion zone, ban the use of megaphones and afford greater protection to individuals supplying goods or service to the university. A request by Oxford to further restrict the number of protesters from 50 to 12 was denied.

In June 2006, Mel Broughton, Robin Webb, and Amanda King were among several animal rights activists who were awarded legal aid to challenge the injunction.

In October 2006, High Court judge Mr. Justice Irwin denied a request by ALF press officer Robin Webb to remove his name from the injunction citing he was not an ALF member but merely a supporter of the group. The judge said Webb was a " pivotal figure" in ALF and should be subject to an injunction, and that Webb was not a journalist but a propagandist who "echoed the threat from the ALF to the university", going "far beyond legitimate self expression".

In October 2006, after allegations were made on the SPEAK website, Oxford University won a further injunction, prohibiting SPEAK from publishing allegations about the identity of contractors.

Advertising Standards Authority ruling

A brochure produced by SPEAK included a quote from Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE). The quote stated that: "The animal testing regime ... is utterly futile." NICE objected that the statement was quoted out of context and was therefore misleading. In June 2006, the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld the complaint by NICE and ruled that the use of the quote was in breach of ASA guidelines.

The ASA noted that Rawlins' quote referred to the use of animal testing in "long-term carcinogenicity studies with known genotoxic compounds or compounds that produced hyperplasia in chronic toxicity tests only," and did not imply that he was against all animal testing.

Pro-Test

In January 2006, a student group called Pro-Test was formed by Laurie Pycroft, then a 16-year-old, with the aim of countering SPEAK and defending the use of animals in biomedical research. Both groups called demonstrations in Oxford on February 25, 2006, resulting in about 700 Pro-Test supporters opposed by 200-300 from SPEAK.

Further reading

• Official website
• Pro-Test website Archived 2006-02-08 at the Wayback Machine
• government regulations on animal research.
• The Animal Procedures Committee Archived 2006-06-10 at the Wayback Machine, a government advisory group.
• "Cambridge University" Archived 2007-06-07 at the Wayback Machine, a summary of BUAV's report on Cambridge University.
• British Home Office response to the BUAV investigation Archived 2006-05-26 at the Wayback Machine (pdf), February 11, 2003
• The New Animal Research Facility Archived 2006-07-09 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford University
• "Inside an Animal Lab" Archived 2020-10-10 at the Wayback Machine, The Times Online, April 2006
• Saville, Sandra. "Lab monkeys 'scream with fear' in tests" Archived 2020-08-25 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, February 8, 2005
• RDS Online Archived 2008-09-07 at the Wayback Machine, in defence of biomedical research, with Myths FAQ Archived 2005-03-06 at the Wayback Machine