Oxford Uni tackles animal rights protestors
Oxford Uni tackles animal rights protestors
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Thursday, 18, May 2006 10:00
Oxford University is seeking to extend a high court injunction against animal rights activists campaigning against the construction of its new £20 million biomedical research centre.
The higher education institution already has a temporary injunction against the protestors, which limits when and where demonstrations can take place, but it argues that the ban should be extended to cover the whole city because university premises spread across Oxford are at risk of being targeted.
The current injunction allows animal rights protestors to demonstrate opposite the site of the new biomedical medical facility on South Parks Road, each Thursday between 14:00 and 18:00 BST.
But demonstrators are banned from conducting any protest activities, including the use of megaphones and cameras, within a designated exclusion zone.
Oxford University officials now want the ban extended so that weekly demonstrations are limited to a maximum of 12 people during a one-hour lunchtime period.
They also want protection from protestors for those associated with the university to be extended to a larger group of people, including those who supply goods and services to the institution.
Construction on the university's new medical laboratory was resumed late last year after the project's initial building contractor pulled out of the development in July 2004 following ongoing protests by the animal rights group Speak.
Explaining the university's decision to seek an extension to its injunction against protestors, chief executive of the Medical Research Council Colin Blakemore told BBC radio the legal move was designed to curb a "pattern of weekly disruption, loud noise, by relatively large groups of people".
But a spokesman for Speak accused the university of attacking the demonstrators' right to protest unnecessarily.
"This continued attack on legal protest is likely to have the effect where some people will give up the whole idea of legal protest and take to a protest outside the law," Mel Broughton told the BBC.
The high court case, which is expected to last three days, follows Tony Blair's recent condemnation of the 'appalling' activities of anti-vivisection extremists.
In the wake of threats against pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline Mr Blair reiterated the government's support for animal testing in parliament yesterday and pledged to crack down on the criminal activities of extreme animal rights activists.