Oxford University wins animal rights injunction
Posted on: Friday, 26 May 2006, 08:45 CDT
By Kate Holton
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Oxford University won a legal battle on Friday to increase the restrictions placed on animal rights activists who regularly demonstrate against its new research laboratory.
The university went to the High Court last week to extend an exclusion zone round the 20-million-pound ($37 million) biomedical center to keep demonstrators away.
Some animal rights extremists, opposed to vivisection, have widened the protest by threatening violence against anyone involved with the university.
On Friday, a judge increased the exclusion zone and handed down new rulings on the amount of noise protesters can make.
"We all have the right to work and study in a safe and peaceful environment, free from threat, intimidation and disruption," the university's registrar Julie Maxton told reporters after the hearing. "That right is what the court has acknowledged today.
"We fully recognize the right of individuals and groups to express their views within the framework of the law. The judgment protects that right by making it clear that it cannot be used as a cloak for unlawful activity and behavior."
Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, said the legal move had been designed to curb a "pattern of weekly disruption and loud noise by relatively large groups of people."
"What the university is seeking to stop here is the growth of a mood of violence and aggressive protest against the university and everyone associated with the university," he told BBC radio before the ruling.
Construction of the laboratory was suspended in July 2004 for 16 months when the building contractor pulled out in the face of a persistent campaign by animal rights group SPEAK.
Building work resumed late last year after the university obtained a limited injunction on protests near the laboratory, but demonstrations against the center have continued elsewhere in the city of Oxford.
Poorva Joshipura, the director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said that despite the ruling, she was confident they would one day see the center closed.
"These attempts to silence legitimate and peaceful protests do absolutely nothing to get to the root of the issue which is unacceptable cruelty to animals in the laboratory and the real need to move away from old fashioned animal tests," she told Reuters.
"These attempts will only strengthen the resolve of the caring people out there who are protesting. We're going to be able to close that laboratory down."
(Additional reporting by Ross Weingarten)
Source: REUTERS
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