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The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is a radical animal rights group.
Overview, aims and origins
The ALF was originally formed in the UK in the 1970s by animal rights activist Ronnie Lee, who had previously been involved with The Band of Mercy and the Hunt Saboteurs' Association.
The ALF's stated aims are:
- to liberate animals from places of abuse, i.e. laboratories, factory farms, fur farms, etc, and place them in good homes where they may live out their natural lives, free from suffering;
- to inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals;
- to reveal the horror and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors, by performing non-violent direct actions and liberations;
- to take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.
The ALF claims not to have a 'structure' or 'organization' in the sense of most campaigning groups. Instead, it encourage individuals to take 'direct action' against what it sees as manifestations of animal abuse, such as the meat, dairy or vivisection industries. One does not 'join' the ALF in the usual manner (e.g. by filling in a form and sending it to a central office). One becomes an ALF activist by taking direct action, and anyone doing so can "claim" the action on behalf of the ALF by passing the details to Robin Webb at the ALF press office, which serves to co-ordinate news of the various ALF actions, as well as issuing statements to the press.
A separate organization, the Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group (ALFSG), raises funds for animal-rights prisoners, both financially and by encouraging members to write to them. The ALFSG does accept members in the conventional sense. It publishes a regular newsletter that details actions that have been carried out against what it calls "animal abusers".
International
The ALF now has groups in a number of countries besides the UK.
The US branch of the ALF has a relationship with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and has provided them with video tapes of animal experiments stolen from laboratories.
Attacks
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1979 and 1993 there were over 313 incidents of break-ins, vandalism, arson and thefts committed in the name of animal rights in the U.S.
Attacks have been carried out at
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a separate but related group, took responsibility for an arson attack on a mink research lab in Anthony Hall on the campus of Michigan State University on New Year's Eve (December) of 1999.
Violence and the ALF
Early ALF actions tended to centre around the removal (or "liberation" in ALF terminology) of animals from vivisection laboratories. The ALF has always had a stated policy of non-violence. However, in more recent years, ALF activities have extended to vandalism, arson and making threats against individuals who directly or indirectly work for organizations the ALF has targeted. ALF supporters state that this is intended to make "animal abuse" as costly as possible. The ALF guidelines state that no ALF action should cause physical harm to any human or non-human animals. Any act that does so is not supported by the ALF and should not be claimed on behalf of the ALF.
A group calling itself the Justice Department is believed to have been responsible for sending of a number of letter bombs to individuals involved in fox hunting, the fur trade or vivisection. Regarding another radical group, the Animal Rights Militia (ARM), Robin Webb, the ALF press officer, has said that; "The only difference between ALF and the more radical ones is that ALF basically take every precaution not to endanger life at any time. The Animal Rights Militia Department are prepared to twist the arm of animal abusers".
There has been conjecture within the animal-rights movement that the Animal Rights Militia and the Justice Department are state-sponsored agents provocateurs set up to discredit the ALF. An opposing view is taken by those who work in the vivisection or meat-producing industries, namely that ALF activists claim violent actions on behalf of ARM and the Justice Department in order to preserve the ALF's proclaimed non-violent stance.
According to media sources, ALF leaders refuse to condemn violence by people who have previously acted in the name of the ALF, so long as they attempt no attribution of their violent acts to the ALF. For example, when David Blenkinsop, together with two other men who remain unidentified, severely beat Huntingdon Life Sciences director Brian Cass outside his home with 'staves' or 'pick-axe handles', ALF founder Ronnie Lee said of the victim "He has got off lightly. I have no sympathy for him." [1] (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=42) Official ALF spokesperson Robin Webb was reported to say "This serves Brian Cass right and is totally justifiable. In fact he has got off lightly. I have no sympathy for him. I do not condemn this act. I condemn what Brian Cass does to animals. In fact, I would say I condone this. What surprises me is that this doesn't happen more often."[2] (http://www.animalrights.net/archives/year/2003/000405.html) The ALF Supporter's Group, which denies any links with the ALF itself, lists Blenkinsop as one of its prisoners of conscience.[3] (http://www.alfsg.org.uk/prisoners.html) The ALF's 'decentralized resistance' model of organisation, with no formal membership or hierarchy, thus acts as a formal 'firebreak' in issues of legal responsibility (or moral accountability).
One of the most highly publicised activities by the ALF was the 1984 Mars Bar campaign, during which the ALF issued statements claiming that bars of Mars chocolate for sale in supermarkets had been contaminated with bleach, in protest against the Mars Corporation's funding of dental research using monkeys. The incident was later revealed to have been a hoax, but it led to widespread criticism of the ALF and caused a split with the pacifist magazine Peace News, which had previously allowed the ALF to use their Nottingham office as a mailing address. However, it this event is not seen by most as being violent as no-one was hurt or could be hurt by the event. Instead, the event just gave the impression that people could be hurt.
See also
External links
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