Animal Rights News — This is HUGE
Blood Money, Beagles and a Bloody Big Victory
There has been some incredible news here in the UK in the last 24 hours with massive implications for the animals rights movement. It concerns MBR Acres, a facility that breeds beagles to be tortured and dismembered for profits.
Before I share the news, I’ll briefly outline the background to this story for anyone unfamiliar with MBR Acres and Camp Beagle.
Marshall Bio Resources has been breeding and selling animals for torture in vivisection laboratories for 75 years. Every year, at their Huntingdon facility (MBR Acres) they breed around 2,000 beagles to be tortured and killed in cruel and unjust experiments in the name of ‘science’.
All this is done with the full consent and protection of the state.
For the past year, there has been a permanent protest camp, Camp Beagle, outside the facility made up of dedicated animal rights activists determined to shut the facility down for good. The activists at the camp have been repeatedly harassed by MBR security, police and the courts, but they have stuck it out and remained outside the facility, gaining much publicity and support for the cause.
Following a recent Freedom of Information request from the Home Office, Camp Beagle have discovered that not only does MBR profit from the sale of live dogs and puppies, but they also sell blood, organs and body parts to customers, too.
Dogs who are classed as ‘surplus’ — ex-breeding ‘stock’ or those who are deemed ‘unsuitable for sale’ — are kept as ‘blood donors’.
This is not nearly as altruistic as it might sound. In reality, they are bled repeatedly, without limit, in order to supply blood to animal laboratories for testing purposes. When they are no longer considered useful, they will be ‘exsanguinated’ which is a euphemistic way of saying ‘bled to death’.
In their license application, MBR state they will keep a ‘colony’ of an estimated 35 dogs for repeated ‘harvesting’ of blood. Phrases such as ‘harvesting’ are used to depersonalise and commodify the animals and to solidify the view that they are nothing more than ‘products’ to be utilised, rather than sensitive, intelligent, sentient beings with their own precious lives.
They estimate that over a five-year period, 250 dogs will be subjected to ‘terminal harvesting’… in other words, slaughtered.
The range of ‘products’ they supply to laboratories is not limited to live dogs and blood, either. They also offer pancreas, femurs (leg bones) and livers from murdered dogs.
You may, at this point, be wondering how they can get away with these atrocities and how such barbaric and inhumane practices can still be legal. Well, in reply to such question, MBR states that they are monitored by an ‘Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body’ (AWERB).
MBR point to the fact that this AWERB recently conducted a review of their procedures and found them to be ‘ethically justified’. The irony is that the AWERB is staffed entirely by MBR Acres employees!
Where is justice? Where is accountability? Where is morality?
Just recently, another, independent group of activists turned up at MBR Acres and peacefully occupied the site, some blockading the entrance, others entering and occupying the building itself. Arrests were made, the activists were removed by police. The abusers were left to carry on their foul trade.
The following night, the perimeter fence was cut and a group of activists again entered the facility and this time liberated five of the dogs that were inside. Once they had made sure the dogs were safely rehomed, they handed themselves in to the police and confessed to cutting the fence, breaking down the doors and taking the dogs.
Of course, they were arrested. Breaking into a building by force and theft of ‘property’ from that building is, in the eyes of the law, burglary. The establishment have always thrown the full resources of the state at any animal rights activists committing such illegal acts, with massive police operations, undercover infiltration of activist groups, maximum charges, long prison sentences and treating activists as terrorists, all designed to crush such direct action taken by brave, compassionate, caring individuals and protect the state-sanctioned abusers.
I this instance, what happened next was just incredible. The Crown Prosecution Service announced that they are dropping all charges against the activists because of ‘lack of evidence’.
Even though the activists openly admitted to damaging MBR property and taking the dogs, the authorities are now claiming they don’t have any evidence! In effect, by openly confessing, the activists have forced MBR and the state into a lose-lose situation:
- Take the case to trial with a jury, in which case the defendants get to put MBR under the spotlight in court and expose, in front of the whole world, the evil practices going on behind closed doors at the facility (with the very strong likelihood that the jury would be sympathetic and find the defendants ‘not guilty’) or…
- Take no further action, a climb-down with obvious implications for any members of the public looking for ways to help stop the abuse of dogs by MBR Acres in the future.
They’ve chosen the second option, no doubt trying to avoid the massive media coverage a trial would entail, as well as the very real possibility of an unfavourable legal precedent being set.
In doing so, they have set a different precedent, of sorts, with the potential for huge ramifications. Is this the beginning of the end for MBR and a massive victory for their animal victims and those who fight on their behalf?
Either way, one thing is certain. As a result of these brave, selfless actions, there are now five dogs who were destined for a short life of misery, pain and abuse, who are now safe in loving homes with long, happy lives ahead of them.
Whatever happens from here, that is a victory in itself.