SHAC

The campaign Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, SHAC, was set up in England at the end of 1999 with the aim of closing down Europe’s largest animal testing lab: Huntingdon Life Sciences. Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is the largest contract testing laboratory in Europe. They have about 70,000 animals on site, including rabbits, cats, hamsters, dogs, guinea-pigs, birds and monkeys. These animals are destined to suffer and die in cruel, useless experiments.

HLS will test anything for anybody. They carry out experiments which involve poisoning animals with household products, pesticides, drugs, herbicides, food colourings and additives, sweeteners and genetically modified organisms. Every three minutes an animal dies inside Huntingdon, totaling 500 innocent lives every single day.

Today SHAC is an international campaign, and the first of its kind, with SHAC groups in the UK, USA, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and many other countries, all uniting to target HLS and the companies that support them globally. SHAC takes a three-tier approach, campaigning against customers who provide HLS with an income and profits, suppliers who provide HLS with vital tools to carry out research, and financial links such as shareholders, market makers and banking facilities. SHAC has called for a mass boycott of HLS and is calling on all companies that do business with Huntingdon to turn their backs on animal cruelty.

SHAC was set up by a group of activists who had successfully closed down lab animal breeders, Consort kennels and Hillgrove cat farm. The most important lesson from all these campaigns is to remember that all those animals would still be inside Consort and Hillgrove if we had waited for politicians to act. The lesson is that, if we really want these hell holes to close, we have got to do it ourselves - action is what it is all about. We have to fight to win. Those who freed slaves over 100 years ago and the suffragettes who fought for womens’ right to vote didn’t ask for their rights and freedoms by saying “Please sir.” Instead they fought hard with many personal sacrifices, and they won.

Anybody can join the campaign to close down HLS. There are targets in each country, including Switzerland, which is home to some of the worst pharmaceutical companies, such as Novartis and Syngenta. You can join or organize a demo, or organize a different kind of event to show the true face of these companies.

HLS customers in Switzerland

From the website of the campaign: www.shac.net