Animal protesters turn village into a living hell for one family.

Globe and Mail, Toronto.
Animal protesters turn village into a living hell for one family.
DOUG SAUNDERS begins his assignment as The Globe's London correspondent with a look at a disturbing new tactic in the war over animal rightsBy DOUG SAUNDERSMonday, August 30, 2004 - Page A1
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NEWCHURCH, ENGLAND -- The Red Lion pub, a wood-shingled building on the edge of this quiet English farm village, is a decent place to grab a pint and a light meal -- unless your last name happens to be Hall. In that case, you're ordered to stay away.
Likewise the golf course, whose gym the Halls were politely asked to stop using this year. The newspaper deliveryman has decided to stop coming to their farmhouse. And the milk trucks and diesel-fuel suppliers have made it known that they won't be coming around the farm, for fear of their safety.
In a community known for its open doors and friendly neighbours, the Halls live behind an electric fence, high-intensity lights and security cameras, visited only by the dwindling list of business people and friends who dare enter.
"We're victims of terrorism," said Chris Hall, one of the brothers who have run the farm for more than 40 years.
"Our friends and employees and neighbours have all had their lives threatened and their properties damaged unless they stay away from us. It's a terrible situation."
The root of all this fear and secrecy? Guinea pigs.
The Hall family raise the portly rodents, tens of thousands of them, to be sold to universities and research labs. Animal-rights protesters, enraged by experiments on animal subjects, have developed a radical new direct-action strategy, and it's being tried for the first time against the Halls.
"Before, we would just target those directly responsible for the killings, the researchers and farmers," said David Hughes, 23, who stood holding a megaphone with a dozen fellow protesters outside the Halls' farm last week, yelling "shame" and "murderer" at anyone who entered or left.
"But now we're targeting the entire supply chain, anyone who benefits from this murder, shaming them and letting them know they're profiting from the killings."
The strategy is part of a recent broadening of scope by animal protesters. It has extended to researchers and students who use the rodents, targeting their families, their colleagues and anyone with whom they do business.
In Newchurch, the entire village has in effect been punished for the Halls' guinea-pig operation.
The homes of farm suppliers, shopkeepers, merchants and their employees have been picketed, and people only remotely associated with the farm, such as waitresses at the pub, say they have been subjected to threatening letters and telephone calls.
At the golf course where Mr. Hall once used the gym, activists picketed the facility and somebody dug up the greens at night, causing $25,000 in damage. The news agent and fuel supplier felt sufficiently frightened to cut the family off entirely.
At first, the Red Lion pub remained a voice of defiance, even as its windows were being broken.
"They started sending letters to our customers, telling them that we were serving 'scum' and urging them to stop coming here," Kate Marklew, who ran the pub with her husband, told a radio interviewer.
"But we didn't think [the Halls] had done anything wrong and we wouldn't stop serving him. He only had the odd meal and a pint, and you have to have a reason to bar someone."
But then the activists began targeting Union Pubs, the corporation that runs the Red Lion. Company officials said this week that they were afraid of further damage and loss of business, and told the Marklews to either ban the Halls or lose their jobs. They chose to quit this summer and are currently jobless.
The Halls have also had a hard time keeping employees. One worker at their dairy operation was urged to quit; when he declined, the protesters sent letters to village residents claiming that he was a pedophile and that his wife had a venereal disease. Two other staff members quit, fearing similar pressure.
Police have made some arrests for public-order offences, and the British government has announced plans for new anti-terrorism laws to crack down on such tactics. But the protesters, who have picketed the Halls' house twice a week for almost five years, say they consider the new strategy a success.
"We are very happy with our progress toward putting a stop to this," said Amanda Richards, 30, an organizer with Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs. "People are beginning to understand that we are the victims, that tens of thousands of animals are being killed and protesters are being attacked . . . these people haven't suffered a single serious injury or death."
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Except for Spain, Mother Nature's RIGHT TO LIFE for animals is not enshrined in the Constitution for all countries, because of human supremacists' psychopathy of speciesism. ...Jg