[editor’s note: photo unrelated, chicken liberation in January 2024. Unfortunately we were unable to retrieve the media sent by the anonymous activists, not for lack of trying as they sent it twice! Sorry about that, we will be happy to update it if we receive the media again!]
received anonymously via email:
“How to animal-liberation
Humanity is defined by compassion, and compassion calls us to help within our ability. This duty isn’t linked to a species – every being who can feel and wants to live deserves our compassion and our protection.
The animal industry is killing millions of sentient, innocent beings everyday, exploiting their workers and killing our planet. The industry is made by humans and must therefore be torn down by humans.
On the night of April 12th to 13th to 2 animalrightsactivists liberated 3 hens from a battery cage system in germany. The 3 individuals are now save and will never be exploited by humans ever again.
Many people want to step into action but don’t know how. So here’s a small “How to Animal Liberation” guide:
Step 1:
Team up with trustworthy people.
Step 2:
Research: Look for animal exploitation farms/factories/etc. nearby using tools like Google Maps/Street View or by searching the internet with keywords like: egg farm, broiler chicken farm, rabbit breeding, fattening farm, etc. Get a virtual first impression (Smaller animals are easier to liberate)
Step 3:
Find sanctuaries or suitable places and discreetly inquire (about capacity, financials, etc.)
Step 4:
Get the necessary equipment (transport crates, car, headlamps, gloves, walkie-talkies, etc.)
Step 5:
Scout the area and get to know the surroundings, including possible escape routes – any residential houses? Busy roads? Pay attention to cameras and alarm systems
Step 6:
Action – at least 4–5 people with clearly defined roles: 1 person waits in a hidden car, 1 person stands watch with a walkie-talkie, 2–3 people enter the facility and take out the previously agreed number of animals (for small animals, 2 people catch them and 1 person opens and closes the transport crates)
Step 7:
Transport the animals to their new home as quickly as possible
Step 8:
Debrief, share your experiences and be there for each other
Take care and dont get caught!
As long as the” are cages we will open them!
we are not free until all are – animal liberation now!”
“It’s their lives, not ours” is often shouted in the streets among speciesists but how much do we value their lives? Imagine being tortured/slaved and that your destiny is to have your throat slit, would you expect total abolition or at least that someone would risk everything to at least help you escape from that misery? This is what we always ask ourselves with some, very few companions.
There are people who rescue animals from the streets that are abandoned to their fate (dogs or cats) there are other people who rescue together with the police using the few laws that are left on their side to non-human animals, such as horses for example, but what is left to animals from exploitation?
There are no laws that regulate their fate whether they are pigs, cows or chickens. One thing is to rescue and another to liberate.
Even if it is a life “it is their life”. Animals cannot wait for the end of speciesism, our complacency limits us to what we are doing and “up to here I can do” for the other animals, but is it enough? Do you really believe that you save animals without cutting their cages? We don’t think so.
As we firmly maintain that animals are not anyone’s property, and that it is not even expropriation. It is an act of liberation of slaves to take direct action in our hands and save lives…which are theirs, not ours. Even if in the act we consequently lose our own freedom because we owe it to them.
Self-organising can be achieved collectively with an objective purpose as long as we are clear about the urgency that the end deserves. We are also clear to those pessimists that we will not free all the animals in the world in this way, but “What if you were in their place? “IF YOU WERE THE VICTIM?” ”How long would you give your oppressor?” Self-organise now!”
SPANISH (original):
“Son sus vidas, no las nuestras” se suele gritar en las calles entre especistas pero que tanto valoramos sus vidas? Imagínate estar siendo tortutado/esclavizado y que tu destino sea ser degollado , esperarías la abolicion total o al menos que alguien lo arriesgue todo para al menos ayudarte a escapar de esa miseria? Es lo que siempre nos preguntamos con algunxs, muy pocxs compañerxs.Hay personas que rescatan animales de las calles que son abandonados a su suerte(perros o gatos) hay otras personas que rescatan junto a la policía utilizando las pocas leyes que les quedan de su lado a los animales no humanos, como a caballos por ejemplo, pero que les queda a los animales de la explotación? No hay leyes que regulen su destino si son cerdos ,vacas o pollos. Una cosa es rescatar y otra liberar.Aun que sea una vida “es su vida”Los animales no pueden esperar por el fin de el especismo, nuestra autocomplacencia nos limita a lo que estamos haciendo y “hasta acá puedo hacer” por los demás animales, pero es suficiente? De verdad creen que salvan a los animales sin cortar sus jaulas? No lo creemos así. Como sostenemos firmemente que los animales no son la propiedad de nadie,y que no es expropiación siquiera. Es un acto de liberacion de esclavxs tomar en nuestras manos la acción directa y salvar vidas…que son las suyas , no las nuestras . Aun que en el acto por consecuencia perdamos nuestra propia libertad porque se lo debemos.Lo autogestivo puede lograrse de manera colectiva con un propósito objetivo siempre y cuando tengamos en claro la urgencia qué merece el fin. Tenemos también bien en claro para esxs pesimistas que de esta manera no liberaremos a todos los animales del mundo,pero “y si estuvieras en su lugar?” “SI FUERAS VOS LA VÍCTIMA?” “Cuanto tiempo le darías a tu opresor?” Autogestionate ya!”
You may have noticed that our online store is down. This is because PayPal has forcibly frozen our accounts. We don’t know on whose orders, but UA is no stranger to censorship and state repression. We’ve endured it many times and are sure this won’t be the last.
Unfortunately, this happened when we needed to pay for our website hosting.
The website is vital to UA’s work and existence. It is the hub where we share anonymous direct action reports, updates on prisoners, and other news from the movement. While social media allows us to amplify this news, the suppression (and repression) we face there makes the website invaluable. Due to endless state interference, we have moved the hosting to Iceland, where freedom of speech online is legally protected. Thanks to capitalism, this comes at a cost.
We need to raise around $400 by the end of the month to pay for the server, and at the moment, we can only accept cryptocurrencies. We have Monero and Bitcoin wallets available (we prefer Monero for privacy reasons, but we can take either).
If you can donate, please go to www.unoffensiveanimal.is/support-us, where you’ll find our wallet addresses. If you can’t donate, please spread the word as much as possible.
Radical media is at the heart of any effective movement. Please help us keep going!
“[Anarcoveganismo does not claim responsibility for any crime or vandalism, but we think it is important to spread all the news sent to us through anonymous messages].
It was learned that during the early hours of Saturday morning three double trailers with crates transporting live chickens to slaughterhouses were set on fire (the crates were empty).
A local source described this event as “doubtful”, since no “electrical failure” was found and it seems to have been intentional. Even though it was not related to any insurance issue, there is no way that only one of the trailers could have caught fire out of nowhere, nor is it understood how the three trailers could have caught fire at such a distance from each other. Everything indicates that since there were no birds in any of the trailers, they were set on fire.
This news makes us happy, regardless of the purpose of this fire, in those trucks full of crates thousands of chickens are transported to slaughterhouses, they have no chance of escaping death and even if some arrive already lifeless, most of them can see how their brothers are killed under the supremacist human hand. We believe that those who directly fight the murderous speciesist machinery fight speciesism with a bare fist by boycotting, and destroying against all odds, or against all consequences.”
SPANISH (original):
“[Anarcoveganismo no se atribuye ningun hecho delictivo o vandalico, pero nos parece importante difundir todas las noticias que nos envían mediante mensajes anónimos]
Se supo que durante la madrugada del Sábado se incendiaron tres acoplados dobles con cajones qué transportan pollos vivos a mataderos (los cajones se encontraban vacíos)
Una fuente local tildó de “dudoso” este hecho, ya que no se encontro algún “fallo eléctrico” y al parecer fue intencional. Aun que no se lo relacionó con algun tema de seguro, no hay forma de que de la nada se pueda incendiar solo alguno de los acoplados, tampoco se entiende como los tres se terminan incendiando de manera total estando distanciados uno de los otros. Todo indica que al no haber aves en ninguno de los acoplados se procedió a incendiarlos.
Estas noticias nos alegran, mas alla de con que fin se haya hecho este incendio, en esos camiones repletos de cajones transportan miles de pollos a mataderos, no tienen ninguna chance de escapar de la muerte y aún que algunos llegan ya sin vida la mayoría pueden ver como son asesinados sus hermanos bajo la mano supremacísta humana. Creemos que quienes combaten de manera directa la maquinaria especista asesina combaten el especismo a puño limpio boicoteando, y destruyendo contra todo pronóstico, o contra toda consecuencia.”
“A mother sheep suffering from a painful, untreated hoof infection and her beautiful newborn lamb have been rescued from a farm in England by a group of compassionate individuals.
She was first seen limping in a field, clearly left to suffer without veterinary care. The farmer had no intention of treating her—doing so would cost money. Instead, he chose to leave her in pain, hoping she would survive long enough for her lamb to reach slaughter weight in time for the Easter market.
We weren’t going to stand by and watch that happen. So we acted. We crossed the fences, entered the field, and carried the mother and her baby to safety—where they’ll be given the love and care they deserve.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of lambs are killed for Easter in the UK. One of the most violent ways to celebrate a holiday supposedly rooted in peace and renewal. We’re proud to have spared two lives from that brutality.”
In Between 1980 and 1989, Osman Evcan was imprisoned for 9 years. In 1992, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for alleged membership in an illegal organization.
In 2003, he embraced anarchist thought, became vegan, and continued to participate in the animal liberation struggle from within the prison system. In 2011, he reaffirmed his conscientious objection regarding his diet and went on a 42-day hunger strike to demand access to cruelty-free, vegan food in prison. This strike garnered support from around the world and compelled the government to make adjustments for vegan prisoners.
During every “sacrifice feast” (Eid al-Adha), he went on hunger strikes to protest the killing of animals. In 2015, he undertook another hunger strike lasting 33 days, successfully securing the right to have vegan food delivered to the prison. However, he had to face the prison administration’s ongoing violations of these hard-won rights.
In addition to advocating for animal freedom, Evcan supported LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and anti-imperialist struggles, contributing articles and writings on these topics. He continues to resist the authoritarian violence and oppression inherent in the hierarchical structure of prisons from a vegan-anarchist perspective!,
Sadık Akso, who shared a cell with Osman Evcan, was also influenced by vegan-anarchist thought and became a significant supporter of the vegan resistance that spread through the cells.
As Evcan expressed in his New Year’s message: “A world without borders, without classes, without exploitation, without wars, without any state organization on Earth; a world that is equal, free, cooperative, supportive, and vegan”
Write to Osman:
Osman Evcan
Silivri 9 No’lu Kapalı Ceza İnfaz Kurumu
C-9-66
Silivri-Istanbul İstanbul
Turkey
FIRE TO THE CELLS, FREEDOM FOR OSMAN EVCAN AND SADIK AKSO
Leonard Peltier was imprisoned for almost 50 years, but he was released from prison earlier this year. Leonard is a Native American activist who was charged and convicted of the murder of two FBI agents in Pine Ridge in 1975. Leonard has always denied his guilt, and the trial against him has been criticized, among other things, because there is a lack of evidence against Leonard.
Leonard’s release in February is of course wonderful. But unfortunately, that does not mean that he is completely free. Leonard has been imposed house arrest as a restriction, which means that he is not allowed to leave his home. Another thing that complicates Leonard’s difficult situation is that he has not yet received the medical care he needs, after years of neglect in prison. He is waiting for eye surgery in May. Leonard is 80 years old.
Leonard still needs our support. Show him that he is not alone. Keep writing letters to him (Leonard cannot read due to an eye disease, but he gets help to read all the letters sent to him).
“hunters have built hunting pulpits designed to sneak and kill innocent beings. They are made to sit in comfort and in hiding while deciding over someone else’s life.
These pulpits are everywhere where there are “wild” animals.
We will no longer look away and let them go one without consequences. So we will also sneak but not to hurt anybody but to destroy these violent structures. We will attack their infrastructure and we won’t stop fighting back to protect the animals in their home.
Killing is not a hobby, it’s a sick way of demonstrating how humans have come to the believe that they worth more than other animals.
We aren’t the only animals who want to live, we aren’t the only animals who want to feel save at home. We aren’t the only animals who live on this planet.
no more hunting! no more weapons! no more killing!
received over email (on a personal note, fuck anti-deustch they are fash cosplaying antifascism)
Reasons why we’re not attending IARC and neither should you!
We are a group of activists who want to share our serious concerns about the current animal rights movement by examining an incident at the 2024 International Animal Rights Conference (IARC) in Luxembourg.
We all met at 2024 IARC, and some of us have been attending for many years because we saw ourselves reflected in the grassroots concept and inclusive values that IARC claims to have. Yet they proved to be performative at the 2024 IARC, due to an incident meant to silence Palestinian representation and its refusal to take a stance against the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
————————- What happened?
During the 2024 International Animal Rights Conference (IARC), an organiser asked if they could take a picture of us to post on social media. While posing for the photo, some of us put on keffiyehs to represent Palestinian liberation. The organiser then said they were not sure if they could post it and needed to discuss it with other organisers.
Since we hadn’t heard from them all day, some of us spoke out about it on the open mic in the evening. Some organisers then went on stage to confirm that, as Germans, they didn’t want to take any political stance on the issue because it’s complicated in Germany. They even asked, “What is Palestine? Is Hamas Palestine?” and condemned Hamas, the government of Gaza, which, like most regions across the world, operates with a military. Meanwhile, they invited a speaker who talked about providing vegan food to the Ukrainian army, which shows, in their view, that Ukrainian/white resistance—as long as they eat vegan—is acceptable, but brown resistance is terrorism or complicated.
It was quite clear to us that their “apolitical” policy doesn’t apply to other widely accepted social justice issues, such as feminism or queer rights—which they openly support, for example, by using rainbow-pride coloured name tags as labels for their “awareness team.”
After this incident, attendees attempted to engage in a dialogue with IARC organisers on a larger scale. However, the organisers wanted to limit the conversation to as small a group as possible to keep it private, turning it more into a conflict resolution session than an open discussion. Many people who care about Palestine didn’t even know this conversation was happening.
For three hours, we and others who joined the conversation tried to explain the significance of the incident—the racism and hypocrisy that it represents—and informed IARC organisers that we wouldn’t return unless they made a clear stance on Palestine in an effort toward total liberation. Instead of taking our needs seriously, IARC organisers fixated on the risk of being perceived as antisemitic by German “left-wing” groups and people.
Despite repeated attempts to engage with the organisers since the conference in September 2024—including direct messages, emails, feedback forms, and social media callouts—they have only made their stance clearer. In January 2025, IARC updated its website with statements such as, the “IARC organisation team condemns attacks on the rights, safety, and freedoms of all humans and non-human animals, whether by state or non-state organisations,” and, “While taking intersectionality seriously, the conference will not position itself to concrete political conflicts.”
Additionally, when someone emailed them to ask about the incident, they replied, “A small group of people raised specific demands and disruptions that could also be interpreted as anti-Semitism and we definitely did not want to support this,” instead of admitting their censorship. At this point, we realised all our efforts in good faith to reform the conference had been totally ignored, and we were ostracised as “minorities”—in their view— from mainstream spaces.
————————- Why does this matter?
The genocide and occupation of Palestine are neither “complicated” nor a “conflict.” The use of such language by an international conference is already tacitly complicit in the oppression as a whole. This is particularly troubling in the context of an animal rights conference which declares to fight for “human rights as well,”—as its logo represents— because it contributes to the dehumanisation of a specific group of people by actively excluding them from its scope.
IARC claims to provide a platform for diverse representatives in an inclusive and discrimination-free environment for all participants. However, when we raised genuine concerns about discriminatory censorship of representation of brown bodies and liberation, they refused to foster such an environment. The “awareness team,” which is supposed to address such situations with fairness, appeared to consist solely of organisers operating by their own standards of racism, which exclude acknowledgment of the genocide in Palestine.
IARC also states on its website, “We try to keep the topics and the people presenting them as diverse as possible. Especially, we welcome applications by BIPOC, queer people, women, people with disabilities, and all other people who are underrepresented in our community,” while dismissing concerns raised by predominantly people of colour, queer people, and women in order to avoid controversial feedback from people in Germany.
Furthermore, in 2024, 8 out of 10 IARC organisers were German, despite purporting to be an international conference not even taking place in Germany. The weaponisation of antisemitism is particularly strong in Germany due to its own historical guilt, but the organisers used this as an excuse for not opposing the genocide in Palestine. This conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism is deeply disingenuous and in itself antisemitic, emboldening the far right.
Some may accuse us of causing “infighting” within the movement and creating division. We appreciate the amazing work IARC does and we truly value spaces where we can gather, learn from each other, grow together, and strengthen our movement. We wish we didn’t have to boycott any event like this. But, as animals ourselves and as animal rights activists, we cannot, in good conscience, support a conference that refuses to even call what’s happening in Palestine a genocide. IARC’S refusal also means they are ignoring all forms of life—animals, land, water, trees, etc.—being erased in the ongoing genocide against Palestinians.
The animal rights movement, which is rooted in challenging systemic exploitation and violence, cannot succeed without dismantling the mechanisms of oppression. It is essential to recognise that each struggle is an interconnected part of a wider effort to fight imperial oppression across the world. All oppression—and therefore all liberation—is connected. Without the liberation of Palestine, we will never get closer to animal liberation.
———————- CALL TO ACTION:
If you believe that IARC’s censorship and subsequent attitude/behaviours are problematic and do not align with the values of your activism, do not attend or support their conferences. Boycott IARC indefinitely.
Comment on this post to amplify Palestinian resistance and liberation.
Use your platform to share this boycott letter.
If you are a sponsor, rescind your funding/sponsorship.
If you were planning to apply as a speaker, please reconsider. Or, apply to speak about the genocide in Palestine, colonialism, and imperialist violence—and how it relates to animal rights. Let us know the result once you hear back from IARC.
If you have registered or applied as a speaker or helper: withdraw your participation and clearly explain to the organisers why you are doing so.
If you have been accepted as a speaker and have already announced it, share your decision to boycott the conference on social media.
If you must attend IARC (due to grants, funding, or occupational reasons), we urge you to include the issue of Palestine in your presentation agenda.- Initiate discussions, ask questions, engage with the organisers to hold them accountable, and create space for meaningful dialogue about Palestine, colonialism, and its connection to veganism.
Wear keffiyehs or any attire that represents Palestinian liberation. They can’t censor everyone!
We admit, the ability to boycott any space, including IARC, is in itself a privilege. It was not an easy decision at all, as we are very sad to take this step and also worried about leaving such spaces unchallenged by not being present. Together, we are using our privilege to boycott IARC and, instead, amplify spaces that embody total liberation.
In the meantime, we officially demand that IARC include at least 50% people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, rather than being predominantly German, in the organising team. If there had been more organisers from less Western-centric standpoints, its perspective may have been different. We are doing what we think is necessary, yet we believe we are still aligned with IARC in many ways, and this is, rather, a way of holding space for all of us to grow together.
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