Animal extremists threaten Cambridge

National Operation Anti-Vivisection have fly-posted advertisements across Cambridge calling on students to “shop” their colleagues in exchange for cash. 

And in a separate campaign they called for protests against named members of the Archaeology Department.

The posters have been sighted at St Catherine’s, the Department of Physiology, the Downing Site, and the Newmarket Jobcentre Plus.

They say: “NOAV is willing to pay £££ for info about students doing experiments on animals in your Uni as part of their academic program!”

Petitioning Cantabs to submit the names, pictures, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of students, as well as photographic and written proof of the animal testing, the activists facetiously claim that their campaign is a way to “Earn some beer money!”

On their depressing website, they add: “We are offering cash incentives… for covert monitoring of their experiments (ie. undercover work).”

It is not clear what the group intends to do with any information gathered.

In a press release, 25-year-old spokesman William Evans, from Leeds, said: “Our aim in this campaign is to contact students… and explain the reasons… for using human relevant methods rather than animal testing.”

The posters around Cambridge claim the group intend to “make polite contact [with relevant students] about alternatives to animal research”.

But speaking to The Tab about the group’s intentions, Evans was evasive and full of mixed messages.

He claimed: “People who choose to be involved deserve to be the target of protest.”

When pressed on what this would involve, he answered: “Protest at the labs, constant information in the press about the research that’s going on, their social lives.”

Evans also mentioned there were potentially “hundreds of pounds” up for grabs, “depending on who or what you have”.

He added: “People who choose to exploit animals open themselves up to the possibility of personal risk.

“I don’t agree with anything threatening but if you choose to be a security guard for example you open yourself up to certain risks.

“If you choose to be involved in something as controversial as vivisection you open yourself up to risks like this. It’s not me creating that risk.”

In an open letter to Cambridge animal experimenters, NOAV’s website threatens to expose details collected, so that “you will become a social pariah.”

They ominously add: “You will be subject to continual protest throughout your life, and will not get a moment’s peace from the ongoing aggressive but lawful pressure exerted by the animal rights movement.”

NOAV have also bizarrely urged the public to carry out “lawful action” against members of the Archaeology department, who have been labelled as “secondary targets”.

The archaeologists’ names, photos, telephone numbers, and workplaces have been posted online, again, contrary to the organisation’s earlier statement that their campaign is “non – threatening, peaceful and legal … we will not be disclosing any personal addresses or phone numbers that we receive”.

The Archaeology division are accused of working with pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca, a company that conducts animal experimentation.

Academics have planned an archaeological dig on a Cambridge site before foundations are laid for the new AstraZeneca headquarters.

One student at the hospital, curing disease and who wishes to remain anonymous, described the group as “repulsive, unthinking terrorists”.

Another said: “The only thing I know about animal testing is we paint bees with nail varnish over there.”

Whether these delightfully unhinged people would take life-saving drugs tested on animals remains to be seen.