THE ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT FREES EIGHT LAMBS FROM HORRIBLE CONDITIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE FOUR CHILEAN ARRESTEES.

7th November, Northamptonshire UK.

received anonymously via email:

“On the 7th November, after having heard of the arrest of four comrades accused of a slaughterhosue arson in Chile, we decided to take action in solidarity. We had been keeping an eye on a Northamptonshire sheep farmer that is known to neglect animals even more than the standard.

We paid a visit to one of his fields and discovered what nightmares are made of. From about sixty young lambs, we could count at least twelve bodies laying dead in the mud. Many others too weak to run, or completely stuck in brambles or barbed wire.

We took eight lambs with us, as many as we could fit, and drove them to safety. During the drive, more and more gruesome discoveries were found. Their excrements were full of worms, their spine could be felt all the way around and two of them were covered in flystrike. We hope all the lambs make a speedy recovery now that they have people around who care about their wellbeing and freedom.

This farmer deserves a lot more than just a liberation, and we can promise this is just the begining. He will pay for the enormous suffering that he inflicts on every single animal under his care.

To our imprisoned comrades in Chile, solidarity, love and rage.

You can imprison activists, but you can never jail the ALF.”

SMASH SPECIESISM, THREE WINS IN A ROW.

Smash Speciesism is a civil disobedience and direct action group in the UK. Earlier in the year we published about their NOT GUILTY verdict in their case for the Forge Farm Meats slaughterhouse blockade, which stopped the murder for almost the whole day and -as an unexpected win – took the climbing police resources away from evicting protestors who were blockading an arms factory known to sell weapons used to murder Palestinians. During their court case, the judge accepted that the blockade was justified due to the abuse and malpractice by Forge Farm Meats.

During the T&S Campaign, Smash Speciesism blockaded Phil Kerry’s quarry, raising alarm bells about the fact that major trades providers were making dealings with an animal abuser. That action would be the last nail in the coffin after a well thought out campaign by Shut Down T&S and Phil Kerry would announce his imminent retirement from rabbit fur farming. The two activists that blockaded the quarry would have their charges dropped as the cops had once again acted illegally and CPS was unable to build a case.

The group doesn’t shy away from even more disruptive actions. Last year they disrupted the Royal Vet vivisection awards, where alarms attached to helium balloons were set off, people booed and shouted at the speakers and ultimately someone would set off the fire alarm off, forcing the whole university compound to evacuate and the awards event to be cancelled. No activist was arrested as a result of that action.

They also organised another slaughterhouse blockade in 2020 at the gates of Tulip LTD in Manchester. Multiple lock ons and D-locks were deployed and no pigs were killed for the whole day. Last week, a judge acquitted all activists, effectively giving Smash Speciesism yet another win against the speciesist machine.

Whatever is next for Smash Speciesism, we would like to congratulate the activists and celebrate their wins once again. Disruptive, well thought out actions will topple the machine, and they have proven that multiple times.

You can find Smash Speciesism here:

IG: @Smashspeciesism
FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068875545795

UNTIL WE WIN!

ON MINK LIBERATIONS

In the past week, the US has woken up to three mink farm raids by the Animal Liberation Front. First in Ohio, where 1000 mink were released into the wild. Michigan was the next target, where 800 mink were reed from cages. Yesterday, at a different farm in Ohio, 40,000 mink found freedom thanks to the ALF, who have yet to claim the action.

Every time that a liberation of this manner is reported, there are many critical voices within the movement that insist in the ecological impact of such actions, or that believe that the animals are far too domesticated to make it in the wild.

We would love to analyse those claims, as well as talk about the thought process behind this type of action, as they are some of the most impactful liberations in the recent years.

Mink liberations (like game bird liberations, or even deer parks) have one very powerful characteristic. Whilst they behave like any other animal liberation action -freeing animals from their place of abuse – they are understood easier as a sabotage action. Unlike other kinds of liberations where the domesticated animals will need care for the rest of their lives, wild animal releases do not require the transport of animals to a secure location, or the rehoming of each individual, or the ongoing treatment and medical care for the rest of their lives. The people involved in wild animal releases do not have to travel out of the raid location with a van full of animals (and the immediate and forensic risk that that entails). Instead, the animals are released into the wild, where they are fully able to meet all their needs and express all their wants. That is a very powerful and much less burdensome action.

We are not talking here about the release of domesticated individuals into the wild. For example, the release of rabbits from a meat farm will without a doubt ensure their death after a few days or weeks, whilst the raid of a rabbit game farm could see thousands of wild rabbits make it into the wild to live for generations to come. In the case of mink, for the most part, fur farms breed American Mink. They are not genetically (or behaviourally) different to their already free comrades. The release of American mink in the North American continent will not force those animals into any more difficulties than any other part of the wild faces with the uber-development of the human species trampling on all sorts of almost disappearing habitats.

There is always an argument about the ecological impact of releasing any kind of animal into the wild, specially on big numbers. The introduction of thousands of individuals does indeed cause an ecological imbalance. But we shouldn’t blame the liberators for that imbalance. The imbalance has been manufactured by greed and capitalism destroying habitat around the world, and by fur farmers that have decided to breed thousands of animals and confine them into a tiny farm. In fact, there has been multiple instances where the farmers themselves have decided to release mink into the wild when the cost of feeding and murdering them was higher than the profits of selling their pelts. Self liberated mink are a common occurrence in mink farms, and arguably if a mink liberation is so impactful that the farm shuts down for good, the ecological impact will be greatly reduced in comparison to decades of that same mink farm working ‘business as usual, releasing mink when they feel like it, with escapees running out of the farm constantly and producing a huge amount of animal waste that leaks into the ecosystem.

There is no action without consequence, and we hope that every single fur farm shuts down, be it because you make them shut down, or because the raids in other farms scare the owners into the realisation that mink (and fox, and chinchilla, and rabbit!) farming is a thing of the past, reserved to history books under the “human horrors and cruelty” chapter.

For more information on mink farm locations (in the USA) and on how people in the past have raided mink farms worldwide, visit https://finalnail.wordpress.com/

UNTIL WE WIN.

MICHAL KOLESAR AND HIS TEAM OPEN RESCUE EIGHT DUCKS FROM A MEAT FARM.

November, Czech Republic.

via: Michal Kolesar.

ENG:

“I don’t want to go to places like that anymore. It’s the same misery just in different scenes. It’s getting harder to leave.

We went to rescue ducks. We took nine of them. One of them was lying on her back. Weak and light. In that moment I held her in my hands I knew it was bad. She died just a few kilometres from where she would have died if we hadn’t come.

We took eight of them home. To life. To better times.Thanks to everyone who is with us.”

CZ:

“Nechci už na taková místa. Pořád stejná bída. Jen v jiných kulisách. Je pořád těžší odcházet.

Šli jsme pro kachny. Vzali jsme jich devět. Jednu, která ležela na zádech. Slabá a lehká. Už když jsem ji bral do dlaní, tak jsem věděl, že je to špatné. Umřela nám pár kilometrů od místa, kde by umřela, kdybychom nepřišli.

Osm jsme jich rozvezli do domovů. Do života. Do lepších časů. Díky všem, kdo jsou s námi.”

ACTIVISTS LIBERATE A HEN AT THE DOORS OF THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE IN MEMORY OF BARRY HORNE.

November, South America

received anonymously via email:

“Anti-specist individuals carried out an animal liberation rescue from a poultry slaughtering industry.

The action was carried out while a truck, loaded with live chickens, entered the torture center and slaughterhouse. Moment in which it was possible to materialize the extraction of a bird that had managed to escape from the despicable plastic cages that imprisoned it and transported it to death.

The hen was in very poor condition, semi plucked and too stressed. After leaving the place, she was taken to a permanent shelter where she will receive veterinary care and special care for her rehabilitation.

This action was dedicated to Barry Horne, a comrade in the struggle for animal liberation, who died on November 5, 2001 after a fourth hunger strike against animal experimentation, while serving an 18-year prison sentence for setting fire to animal exploitation.

Until every cage is empty!’

JOSEPH DIBEE, EARTH LIBERATION FRONT SABOTEUR, SENTENCED TO TIME SERVED.

VIA: Unicorn Riot. By Ryan Fatica,

Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, a 54-year-old environmental activist and former Earth Liberation Front saboteur, was sentenced to time served today after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit arson and one count of arson. Dibee was also ordered to complete 1,000 hours of community service.

Dibee is a former member of an autonomous cell of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, loose networks of activists who in the late 90s and early 2000s took responsibility for a string of attacks on industries, businesses, and government entities they saw as responsible for the mounting environmental crisis.  

In 2005, in the midst of post-911 anti-terrorism fervor, the FBI rolled out Operation Backfire, which ultimately led to the indictment of nearly 20 people on serious felony charges. Although Dibee was not initially charged in the case, he was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury to testify against another activist. When confronted with the choice of whether or not to cooperate, or ‘snitch,’ Dibee chose to flee to Syria, his family’s country of origin. Shortly thereafter, he was indicted in a sweeping conspiracy case.

In summer 2018, Dibee was captured in José Martí International Airport in Havana, Cuba on his way home from a business trip in Ecuador and was held by Cuban authorities for several days. According to Dibee, he was tortured, threatened with execution, and held without food or water. On August 9, 2018, he was turned over to the FBI and extradited to the United States.

In April 2022, after nearly two years of pre-trial incarceration, Dibee signed a plea agreement admitting to his participation in a conspiracy to commit arson at Cavel West, a meat packing facility in Oregon that was known for slaughtering wild horses, and at a Bureau of Land Management horse facility near Litchfield, California. 

Today, two years and five months after his initial capture, Dibee appeared remotely before Federal Judge Ann Aiken’s court in Eugene, Oregon for sentencing. The prosecution asked the court to sentence Dibee to 87 months in prison, citing the severity of his crimes and his time on the run as reasons for a harsher sentence. Ultimately, Judge Aiken would reject that logic saying that time away from one’s family is always a punishment, whether one is in Syria, Russia, or in prison.

“Syria and Russia were not recreational destinations” at this time, the judge said.

In her lengthy statement, Judge Aiken cited Dibee’s 29 months of pre-trial incarceration, during which he was attacked by a white supremacist and later contracted COVID-19, as well as his years of self-imposed banishment abroad, as reasons for issuing the sentence of time served.

The judge also spoke at length about Dibee’s decades of efforts while he was on the run in Syria, Russia, and Ecuador to use his engineering skills to advance environmental causes.  

Aiken also cited Dibee’s claim that he was tortured by Cuban authorities when he was captured in Havana. Dibee said they left him without water for days and told him that if he didn’t confess, they’d take him on a plane and drop him in the ocean and he would never be found.

“I don’t think an imagination could dream up” such stories, Aiken said.

She initially sentenced Dibee to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution to those entities targeted in his attacks, but decided to table the issue of restitution for a future hearing after Dibee’s attorney objected.

The judge cited Dibee’s lack of financial resources at present, saying he is not likely to be able to pay restitution soon “unless he strikes it rich” by creating a life changing technology, which Judge Aiken admitted “seems possible.”

While on the lam, Dibee taught environmental engineering at a university in Syria, even helping to plan a national project on renewable energy. In Russia, he started a business recycling used fuels into biodiesel. In Ecuador, he agreed to create a technology for ecologically sound gold mining to mitigate the dangers of mercury and other toxins involved in current technologies.

“Frankly, this country needs some of the technologies he’s able to craft,” the judge said.

ANONYMOUS ACTIVISTS SPRAY PAINT A FOIE GRASS RESTAURANT IN SUPPORT OF A BROAD LOCAL CAMPAIGN.

9th November, Utrecht Netherlands.

Via: Active For Justice

ENGLISH:

“Recently we received this picture; spotted by someone in Utrecht. Apparently this graffiti was already there for several weeks!

Even though we did not do this (and it’s not up to us to talk in the name of the person(s) that did this), we did wanted to share it. Apparently more people do not agree with the sale of foie gras.

Restaurant Bistronome des Arts (where this graffiti is/was) is one of the few restaurants in Utrecht that is still selling foie gras. Soon we will announce our next protest; Utrecht has to go foie gras-free. Will we see you then?”

DUTCH:

“Onlangs kregen we onderstaande foto doorgestuurd; gespot door iemand in Utrecht. Blijkbaar stond deze graffiti er op dat moment al enkele weken!

Hoewel dit niet door ons is gedaan (en het niet aan ons is om voor de dader(s) te spreken over deze actie) wilden we het toch even delen. Blijkbaar zijn meer mensen het niet eens met de verkoop van foie gras.

Restaurant Bistronome des Arts (waar deze graffiti staat/stond) is één van de weinige restaurants in Utrecht die nog steeds foie gras verkoopt. We kondigen snel onze volgende actie aan: Utrecht moet en zal foie gras vrij worden. Zien we je dan?”

ANIMAL LIBERATORS RESCUE EIGHT CHICKENS FROM A FARM.

10th November, Buenos Aires Argentina.

received anonymously via email:

ENG (translation)

“Thousands of buildings for the kidnap and murder go animals and the passivity that makes us accomplices to their death.

That complicity is normalising it, conforming, that complicity is their death penalty.

Where is the fight against the use and murder of animals? In a few outreach campaigns, teaching those monsters that they are not doing it right?

It is enough! We must act beyond what is comfortable, we must put ideas into action.

For that reason we visited a chicken farm, those chickens that would then reach your dinner table chipped up. We took eight beings with us, and they stopped being things, livestock, “something”, to become someone.

Due to the horrible conditions they lived in all might not make it, but from the moment they escaped that place they escaped the reason why they had been born. It is much more preferable for them to die without being abused, without being enslaved and without being “things”, rather than them dying in the hands of their master to end up in some monster’s stomach.

Even if it is one, that is more than enough. Every life matters, and every direct action counts, let’s take action against the machine that subjects them to abuse! Animal Liberators”

SPA (original)

“Miles de centros de secuestro y asesinato de animales por doquier y una pasividad que nos hace cómplices.
Esa complicidad es normalización, esa complicidad es conformismo, esa complicidad es una condena a muerte.
¿y donde esta la oposición al exterminio y uso de animales? solo en algunas campañas de concientizacion? enseñandoles
a lxs monstruxs lo mal que esta lo que hacen?
No! es necesario, accionar mas allá de la comodidad, es necesario elevar las ideas hacia lo concreto.
Por ello visitamos un centro de exterminio de gallinas, esas que después llegan descuartizadas a la mesa, de lxs ciudadanxs modelo. Pudimos llevarnos con nosotrxs 8 seres, que dejaron de ser una cosa, una mercancía, “algo”, para ser una vida.
Debido a las condiciones a las que las someten, quizá no sobrevivan todas, pero desde el momento que salieron de ese lugar de exterminio, se rompió la lógica bajo la cual las hicieron nacer. Y es preferible que mueran sin ser sometidas, sin ser esclavas y sin estar cosificadas,
a que mueran en manos de su carcelero para terminar en el estomago de algún monstrux humanx
y por más que sea una sola, ya es mas que suficiente, cada vida vale, y cada acción directa cuenta, accionemos contra esa maquinaria
de cosificación y sometimiento!

Liberadorxs de animales”

THE ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT RELEASES ANOTHER 800 MINK.

November, Michigan USA.

via: NAALPO

Received anonymously:

“all mink (800) released from pipkorn farm: a delayed response to the farmer’s open letter from 1999; sorry it took us so long to respond (we weren’t born yet). to remind you.

https://www.naiaonline.org/articles/article/an-open-letter-to-our-neighbors-from-pipkorn-mink-ranch), this is what was published after the elf freed 5,000 mink from your killing chambers in northern michigan. the midwest is home to many who torture and murder mink.

we like what you’ve done with the place: several new fences and a camera on your barn. these were easily circumvented without the airplanes you suspected from last time, with just a leisurely stroll around back, bolt cutters for the barbed wire, and wire cutters for the chicken wire fence. we also saw how many empty abandoned sheds there were, seems like you were already on your way out.

in this letter, you refered to the mink as “defenseless”, which you would know after analy electrocuting them year after year after year with no remorse. we saw how enlived and energized they were runnning in the field for the first time and believe that giving them a chance at life is better than the certain death they face at your hands. we also wonder whether the community will be so eager to help you after it was confirmed that the mink you held in close quarters developed and spread a specific mutation of covid in your commmunity in 2020. what is being a good neighbor? ruthlessly caging and slaughtering so many beautiful creatures every year? adding considerably to climate and ecological disaster?
all just so rich people can have a new fancy fit?

your wealth is not worth more than one life and certainly not the hundreds of thousands you’ve murdered to date. we came to your farm to free the ones we could (and indeed uncaged every last one), but also to shut you down so the killing stops now. we will make good on this promise, with a little faster response time.”