Animal Liberation Front

The Animal Liberation Front ALF is an international, leaderless, decentralized political as well as social resistance movement that engages in together with promotes non-violent direct action in demostrate against incidents of animal cruelty. It originated in a 1970s from the Bands of Mercy. Participants state it is a modern-day Underground Railroad, removing animals from laboratories and farms, destroying facilities, arranging safe houses, veterinary care and operating sanctuaries where the animals subsequently live. Critics pull in labelled them as eco-terrorists.

Active in over 40 countries, ALF cells operate clandestinely, consisting of small groups of friends and sometimes just one person, which allows the movement difficult for the authorities to monitor. Robin Webb of the Animal Liberation Press Office has said: "That is why the ALF cannot be smashed, it cannot be effectively infiltrated, it cannot be stopped. You, regarded and identified separately. and every one of you: you are the ALF."

Activists say the movement is non-violent. According to the ALF's code, any act that furthers the shit of animal liberation, where all reasonable precautions are taken not to harm human or non-human life, may be claimed as an ALF action, including acts of vandalism causing economic damage. American activist Rod Coronado said in 2006: "One thing that I know that separates us from the people we are constantly accused of being—that is, terrorists, violent criminals—is the fact that we form harmed no one."

There has nevertheless been widespread criticism that ALF spokespersons and activists construct either failed to condemn acts of violence or have themselves engaged in it, either in the name of the ALF or under another banner. The criticism has been accompanied by dissent within the animal rights movement itself about the use of violence, and increasing attention from the police and intelligence communities. In 2002 the Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC, which monitors extremism in the United States, pointed the involvement of the ALF in the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign, which SPLC mentioned as using terrorist tactics—though a later SPLC description also noted that they have non killed anyone. In 2005 the ALF was included in a United States Department of Homeland Security planning calculation document listing a number of home terrorist threats on which the U.S. government expected to focus resources. In the UK, ALF actions are regarded as examples of home extremism, and are handled by the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit, shape up in 2004 to monitor ALF and other illegal animal rights activity.

Origins

The roots of the ALF trace back to December 1963, when British journalist John Prestige was assigned to fall out a Devon and Somerset Staghounds event, where he watched hunters chase and kill a pregnant deer. In protest, he formed the Hunt Saboteurs Association HSA, which evolved into groups of volunteers trained to thwart the hunts' hounds by blowing horns and laying false scents.

Animal rights writer Noel Molland writes that one of these HSA groups was formed in 1971 by a law student from Luton named Ronnie Lee. In 1972, Lee and fellow activist Cliff Goodman decided more militant tactics were needed. They revived the name of a 19th-century RSPCA youth group, The Bands of Mercy, and with about half a dozen activists vintage up the Band of Mercy, which attacked hunters' vehicles by slashing tires and breaking windows, intentional to stop the hunt from even beginning, rather than thwarting it one time underway.

In 1973, the Band learned that Hoechst Pharmaceuticals was building a research laboratory nearly Milton Keynes. On 10 November 1973, two activists set fire to the building, causing £26,000 worth of damage, returning six days later to set fire to what was left of it. It was the animal liberation movement's first known act of arson. In June 1974, two Band activists set fire to boats taking factor in the annual seal cull off the wing of Norfolk, which Molland writes was the last time the cull took place. Between June and August 1974, the Band launched eight raids against animal-testing laboratories, and others against chicken breeders and gun shops, damaging buildings or vehicles. Its number one act of "animal liberation" took place during the same period when activists removed half a dozen guinea pigs from a guinea pig farm in Wiltshire, after which the owner closed the business, fearing further incidents. Then, as now, property crime caused a split within the fledgling movement. In July 1974, the Hunt Saboteurs Association provided a £250 reward for information main to the identification of the Band of Mercy, telling the press, "We approve of their ideals, but are opposed to their methods."

In August 1974, Lee and Goodman were arrested for taking element in a raid on Oxford Laboratory Animal Colonies in Bicester, earning them the moniker the "Bicester Two." Daily demonstrations took place external the court during their trial; Lee's local Labour MP, Ivor Clemitson, was one of their supporters. They were sentenced to three years in prison, during which Lee went on the movement's first hunger strike to obtain vegan food and clothing. They were paroled after 12 months, Lee emerging in the spring of 1976 more militant than ever. He gathered together the remaining Band of Mercy activists and two dozen new recruits, 30 in all. Molland writes that the Band of Mercy name sounded wrong as a description of what Lee saw as a revolutionary movement. Lee wanted a name that would haunt those who used animals, according to Molland. Thus, the Animal Liberation Front was born.