23 Rabbits Liberated from Massachusetts Laboratory

For Immediate Release
September 19, 2006

23 Rabbits Liberated from Massachusetts Laboratory; Action Claimed in Solidarity with Recently Sentenced Activists in Anti-HLS Campaign

Hardwick, Massachusetts- Twenty-three imprisoned rabbits were recently liberated from a rural Massachusetts animal-testing laboratory. In an anonymous communique received by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, an unnamed group claimed the action at Capralogics in “honor” of 6 activists sentenced this week and last to lengthy prison terms for their role in the campaign to close Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), another notorious laboratory that kills 500 animals daily testing oven cleaners, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals.

According to the communique, insider-taken photographs demonstrate the rabbits “restrained in headlocks, their skin shaved off so they could be injected with various compounds. When their experiment concludes they are terminally bled, meaning they are cut and left to bleed until their life has drained away. Then, as the pictures show, they are thrown into the surrounding fields for coyotes to eat.” Activists claim they will release the photographs soon.

In claiming the action in solidarity with the recently sentenced activists protesting HLS, activists are demonstrating the expected reaction of the animal liberation community to the unjust jailing of fellow activists, activists who themselves were never charged with any act of underground direct action on behalf of animals, but only for providing a website that highlighted the cruelty behind HLS and recognizing those trying to stop it.

The communique continues, in part-
“Jake, Lauren, Kevin, Andy, Josh, and Darius, as well as their 17 other lop-eared friends who have yet to be named, are all safe from the hands of those who had imprisoned and tortured them in the name of profit. This liberation is dedicated to the SHAC-7 and was done in direct response to the government’s assault on them.

Not a single member of the judge, jury and prosecution have the compassion, the conviction, or the courage of any of those six individuals, and they never will. In this sick culture, we know that every day the sick, the stupid, and the evil bully and destroy those who are far their better. Every lab, farm and fur animal, every poisoned wild bird, every beaten child, every raped woman knows this. The case of the SHAC-7 is no different.”