AstraZeneca Demo Reports - 27th July and 12th August 2009
DEMOS CONTINUE AGAINST ASTRAZENECA DESPITE OPPRESSIVE POLICE TACTICS
Monday 27th July 2009
As part of the SHAC Day of Action against AstraZeneca, Bedford Animal Action set out to protest against this HLS customer. The demo started just before 12 noon and the blinds were quickly closed, you can’t escape that easily AZ that’s why we brought the megaphone. The police arrived soon after the demo began. They made it clear that they were on AZ’s side and started acting as their private security. It was while the police were abusing the protesters that the second wave of protesters arrived taking the police by surprise who, after making it clear that we weren’t welcome, retreated to their car.
When the police returned they sectioned the protesters present with section 14 of the Public Order Act saying we had until 2:30pm to protest and leave. This was completely unreasonable considering that the second wave of protesters had only been protesting since 1:15pm. The third wave of protesters arrived at 1:45pm and were immediately issued with section 14 under the same grounds and conditions as the first and second waves, this is a complete violation of their human right to protest.
The protest continued with even more fury then before and the police could be seen laughing at the placards. After this a police woman started taking a video of the protest. We politely requested she send the footage to SHAC but we doubt she will. We retaliated by filming her back.
At 2:30pm we did as unlawfully requested and left for home despite the fact that many of the activists had only been allowed to protest for 45 minutes. We made it clear to AZ that we would return in our goodbye speech on the megaphone. On our way back some activists stopped to have a late lunch in a shaded area. The police decided they would get petty and said we could not have a picnic there because we were on private property. They even bought the security guard over to tell us to leave.
Wednesday 12th August
In retaliation to the illegal police oppression Bedford Animal Action returned once again to this top target site to show that we’re not going away in a hurry!
As soon as we arrived we watched as blinds closed almost instantaneously, it’s like they don’t want to see images of what they’re paying for? But AstraZeneca, you’re prepared to drive around in expensive cars off the backs of these tortured animals, but you aren’t prepared to see images of what the real cost of those cars are. Cowards? We think so.
We spent over two hours giving AstraZeneca and all it’s neighbours a wake up call as to what the real price of dealing with HLS is.
Unfortunately for AstraZeneca, they couldn’t get their van of goodies today either. As always, from the moment we arrived the building went into lockdown. And the poor delivery man who had traveled all the way from Manchester, wasn’t allowed inside and had to leave with all their goods still in the van! What’s wrong AstraZeneca, afraid of what might happen if you open the gates? AstraZeneca’s policy of instant lockdown at the sign of protest is laughable, we wonder what would happen if they had protests every day!
After a short break we returned to greet the workers on their way home for a further hour. Cars zoomed past and swerved to get away from the truth while others hid in the building waiting for us to leave. Looks like many of you were working late that evening.
As AstraZeneca have shown just how excited they get at our protests we’ve made sure we will be there on a regular basis, just so they don’t get bored. So watch this space.
If you would like to show your support by joining in future demos please get in touch at info@bedfordanimalaction.org
AstraZeneca can be contacted at Horizon Place, 600 Capability Green, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 3LU, Tel: 01582 836000, Fax: 01582 838000 (please remember to keep all communications polite)