SHAC 'BLACKMAIL 3' ACTIVIST: GUILTY VERDICT
During the past several years the campaign SHAC (Stop Huntington Life Sciences) have been fighting against animal cruelty committed by HLS in the face of extreme police repression. This week, a UK-based SHAC activist became another legal casualty in the state-sponsored attempts to silence HLS' critics, and was passed a guilty verdict on a 'conspiracy to blackmail' charge. The verdict was given on the 18th of March and she is due to be sentenced next month. The other two defendents have not yet appeared in court as they await extradition from the Netherlands.
The drama began on July the 6th 2012 when activists' homes were raided to find suspects accused of 'conspiracy to blackmail'. The charge can be sentenced with up to 14 years imprisonment. A previous Schnews covers the situation more in depth, including the bullshit nature of the blackmail charge: the catch-all charge means a whole host of otherwise legal actions are bracketed with an unrepresentative sample of law-breaking.
This certainly seems to have been the case with Debbie's trial, during which she was accused of conspiring to blackmail over the course of a decade from 2001-2011. No specific incidence of blackmail was referred to. The prosecution tried to drag up evidence such as “she has a book of George Orwell therefore she must be up to no good!”, namely, involved in emails sent under the alias 'George Orwell' to one of HLS' clients. Because it's not like everyone and his dog has a copy of 1984 somewhere... They also scraped the barrel with some 'foreign' evidence from periods of time where Debbie was, inconveniently for them, very much in the UK.
In terms of silencing Debbie, she has been standing firm despite the pressure. In an interview she had stated that bail conditions disallowed for her to protest, house raids were consistently done to remove protest material (such as flyers) and her charges were constantly changed. Nevertheless, she consistently spoke out about the need for solidarity with animal rights activists in her situation and has been supported throughout by solidarity actions taking place across the continent.
As for the other two, the trial has been put on hold for now. To get involved yourself follow the link to a map sharing locations of groups still tackling Huntingdon Life Sciences.
http://www.blackmail3.org/index.html
Map:
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