Rat lovers demonstrate: terror works

The BBC has reported that a family which has been running a farm breeding guinea pigs for medical research has decided to cease its operations after a campaign of intimidation by animal rights freaks. The campaign has included hate mail, bricks through windows, threats to local shopkeepers and other service providers, and most recently, the desecration of the farmer’s mother-in-law’s grave. They are doing this in the hope that their relative’s remains will be returned.

I first posted about this last August in reply to the series of “terrorist conspiracies” the police uncovered, and the told-you-so blog coverage which appeared each time. While we now know that there were people in our community willing to carry out a terrorist attack, with or without the help of al-Qa’ida, animal rights terrorism has a possibly more damaging effect which we only discover when we can’t get treatment for illness, because they could not do the necessary research. This isn’t to justify needless cruelty to animals, but human life is still more important than that of guinea pigs.

(More at Samizdata.)