Day of Action Against HLS Culminates in Massive Protest at Lab

For Immediate Release

(Philadelphia) The international campaign organization Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) will assemble close to 100 animal rights protestors for a major demonstration against the notorious product animal-testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) to confront the lab workers on their way home. The protest will come on the heels of a planned day of action against pharmaceutical companies and financial institutions connected to HLS across New Jersey.

A coalition of animal rights groups from across the East coast, including the Animal Defense League of NJ are traveling to New Jersey and will be staging several unannounced demonstrations simultaneously across the state, keeping the police at bay and those connected to HLS vulnerable to disruption. Customers and financiers of HLS are likely targets. This form of protest is being modeled on successful demonstrations that have happened in England in the campaign to close down HLS. At several UK demonstrations, activists have managed to breach security and have brought their demonstration inside the companies' offices and laboratories where mayhem ensued.

According to a spokesperson for Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, "No company connected to HLS is off limits for this campaign. Today is about sending a very loud and clear message that if you are connected to HLS you are a participant in the painful demise of roughly 500 animals every day and we will hold you accountable."

The afternoon's demonstrations are expected to be loud, colorful, and unpredictable. Confrontation is also expected to be an element of the day's events as the protests are designed to "name and shame" those who fiscally support animal cruelty. Up to 25 HLS-related targets could be hit throughout the day.

Animal rights activists have made significant achievements against HLS in convincing the worldıs biggest financial institutions to sever ties with the company. The victories read like a laundry list including Merrill Lynch, Citibank, HSBC, the UK government, their stockbroker West LB Panmure, and scores of others. Additionally several major pharmaceutical companies have pulled their contracts with HLS after the SHAC campaign exposed their connection to HLS. HLS, in a lawsuit against SHAC and ADL, is claiming to have lost a 2.5 million dollar contract with RW Johnson as a result of the campaign.

SHAC continues, "HLS is a criminal enterprise, exposed repeatedly for animal cruelty and fraudulent science. We are determined and prepared to knock out every pillar of support for HLS. We will shut them down, but at a rate of 500 animals dying every day we donıt have a second to waste!"

Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is one of the world's biggest and most notorious contract animal testing labs. HLS tests agrochemical and pharmaceutical products on puppies, cats, monkeys, rabbits, and a number of other animals killing roughly 180,000 a year. Activists internationally have committed themselves to shutting down HLS after 5 undercover investigations have shown workers punching beagle puppies in the face, dissecting a conscious monkey, transplanting a frozen pigıs heart into a baboon, and falsifying scientific data and procedures for animal welfare.