Back Again - Site demo report, Thursday 31st May

After almost one year of being barred from Oxford, the acquitted SPEAK protesters re-joined their friends and fellow activists at the weekly site demo on South Parks Rd. Thirty activists gathered to re-affirm their commitment to stand up and SPEAK out on behalf of the voiceless victims of Oxford University like 'Felix'.

In a predictable move the numbers of Thames Valley police officers present had doubled to greet the returning campaigners. This included one officer who had been recorded on the dictaphone tape which caused the trial judge to make such scathing comments about the behaviour of TVP and only one week previously had stood in the witness box to add to the discredited evidence used against the SPEAK defendants.

Despite this clearly provocative action by TVP, campaigners remained disciplined and focused on exposing the lies and deceit peddled by an arrogant minority at Oxford University. The relationship between Oxford University and TVP is now on the public record, but perhaps less obvious is what that means for sentient creatures like Felix and our basic rights to free speech.

It is now abundantly clear that our so-called elected leaders have no interest in ethics or the future of real science but instead are prepared to sit back and defend animal abuse because it's profitable. In doing so they have abandoned any commitment to defending 'free speech' or 'rights to protest' in favour of being in collusion with the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, at the expense of real human based medical research.

It would be nice to think that TVP will now conduct themselves in an unbiased manner towards those seeking to express their human rights and not just pay 'lip service' to facilitating lawful protest, but we somehow doubt it. Irrespective however, the fight goes on and in the end despite the odds, we are confident we will be victorious.

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