The Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action utilizing a diversity of tactics that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human life.
Background
History
When the Animal Rights Militia first emerged in the United Kingdom their focus was on illegal direct action. Utilizing tactics such as the destruction of property, intimidation, and including the use of violence, the ARM have sent letter bombs, placed incendiary devices under cars and in buildings, contaminated food products, sent death threats, and desecrated a grave.
The name was not heard of for eight years after a series of actions in England from 1982 to 1986. Philosopher Peter Singer wrote in 1986 that the ARM may not really exist. The ARM claimed an arson a year later in California, with a series of arsons, hoax bombs and threats reappearing in the 1990s, notably in the Isle of Wight, Cambridge, North Yorkshire and Oxford. The damage caused by fires averaged £2 million in each location. ARM activists continue to report actions in European countries, North America and Australia. Similar to the ALF, activists send anonymous claims of responsibility to Bite Back Magazine, a website supportive of the animal liberation movement and its prisoners.
Structure
The ARM formed the same leaderless-resistance model as the Animal Liberation Front. A cell may consist of just one person. The existence of activists calling themselves the Animal Rights Militia or Justice Department reflects a struggle within the Animal Liberation Front and the animal rights movement in general, between those who believe violence is justified, and those who insist the movement should reject it in favor of non-violent resistance.
Actions
History
The Animal Rights Militia is believed to be a splinter group of the Animal Liberation Front.
1980s
;1982
The first action became known on November 30 when five letter bombs were sent to Margaret Thatcher, then British prime minister, The office manager to Thatcher suffered superficial burns on his hands and face when opening the package that burst into flames. It was later reported that the 8-by-4 inch package filled with gunpowder that exploded evaded Post Office scanners, causing a tightening in mail security at 10 Downing Street. Scotland Yard led the investigation stating, "We are now connecting all five letter-bombs with the same organisation." In an action apparently to protest the annual seal hunt in Newfoundland, Canada, the explosives were delivered to the Canadian High Commission, the then Agriculture minister, a surgeon and a furrier. This time, however, as the padded envelopes were defused, there were no injuries.
;1985
In September, incendiary devices were placed under the cars of two animal researchers for BIBRA (British Industrial Biological Research Association) in South London, which completely wrecked both vehicles. ARM then claimed the contamination was a hoax and they had not carried out the action. But claimed that it had caused huge financial damage which was the intention.
;1986
Three months later in January, ARM claimed responsibility for placing incendiary devices under cars of four individuals involved in animal research at Huntingdon Life Sciences. The explosives were placed in Harrogate, South London, Staffordshire and Sussex, timed to explode an hour apart from each other. This time, also the last time according to the cell, the bomb disposal team were alerted, who deactivated the devices that were confirmed to be live. The next attack the ARM claimed was intended to kill Dr Andor Sebesteny, an animal researcher for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF). However he noticed the device that was attached under his car which saved his life, since no warning had been given.
;1987
On 1 September, at San Jose Valley Veal & Beef, Santa Clara, California, the ARM claims responsibility for an arson which cost $10,000 in damages.
1990s
;1992
On 4 January 1992, the Edmonton Journal reported of an ARM action claimed by a letter and sent to the journal, as well as the Canadian Press. The cell said they injected 87 of the month-old food bar, the Canadian Cold Buster, with liquid oven cleaner, resulting in the product being pulled from shelves in Alberta, Canada. The ARM claimed in the letter, along with two bars, the contamination was due to the slaughter of thousands of rats, injected with various drugs, frozen and starved, "...because of the decade-and-a-half-long history of animal suffering that is this candy's history." The police at the time advised against consuming the food bar, unsure whether the action was genuine. The candy bars sent to the media were later confirmed to have been injected with saline solution (harmless sterilised table salt), proving to be a hoax.
ARM then set fire to shops on the Isle of Wight two week later, causing £3 million worth of damage. Evidence of contamination was not found.
;1998
ARM further came to widespread public attention in the UK in December, during one of Horne's hunger strikes, which lasted 68 days. It was carried out in protest at the British government's refusal to order a commission of inquiry into animal testing, and ARM threatened to assassinate a number of individuals involved in vivisection should Horne die. Those threatened were Colin Blakemore, later chief executive of the Medical Research Council; Clive Page of King's College London, a professor of pulmonary pharmacology and chair of the animal science group of the British Biosciences Federation; Mark Matfield of the Research Defence Society; and Christopher Brown, the owner of Hillgrove Farm in Oxfordshire, who was breeding kittens for laboratories.
2004–2007
;2004
ARM claimed responsibility for removing, in October, from a grave the body of Gladys Hammond, the mother-in-law of Christopher Hall, part-owner of Darley Oaks Farm, which bred guinea pigs for Huntingdon Life Sciences, and which had been the target of the animal rights campaign Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs. The body was removed from a churchyard in Yoxall, Staffordshire, and found buried in woodland on 2 May 2006.
;2005
Following the announced in August that the Hall family were no longer breeding guinea pigs for medical research, the ARM sent letters to the homes of 17 company directors associated with HLS. Most of the companies targeted were building contractors based in Peterborough, Huntingdon, and Harrogate. A letter from the ARM activists said:
Two weeks after the letters were sent in late September, nine companies, more than half, severed their ties with HLS.
;2006
Four people were convicted on 11 May for their involvement in what The Guardian called "a six-year hate campaign" that included letter bombs, vandalism and grave robbing. The judge described the group's actions as "subjecting wholly innocent citizens to a campaign of terror." The campaign included hate mail signed Animal Rights Militia (ARM) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Those convicted were Jon Ablewhite, John Smith and Kerry Whitburn each of whom who were given twelve year sentences and Josephine Mayo who was sentenced to four years.
;2007
On 30 August, ARM claimed to have deliberately contaminated 250 tubes of Novartis's widely used antiseptic Savlon in shops including Superdrug, Tesco and Boots The Chemist who all withdrew sales of the cream. The cell claimed in a communique to Bite Back:
2010–2012
The ARM has claimed attacks in Sweden, in what was described in media as a modern wave of crimes against mainly vivisection personnel and fur farm owners. The actions involved the firebombing of a McDonald's restaurant in Gothenburg 2011, bomb threats, letter bombs and vandalism against fur companies and vivisection personnel. There was a wave of ARM-claimed attacks in Sweden during 2011-2012 after the arrest of a young animal rights activist who was sentenced to prison in 2012 for many of the attacks.
Convictions
;1988
Paul Scare was sentenced to one year in prison for sending razor blades to the people who he had targeted. Robin Webb, who runs the Animal Liberation Press Office in the UK, narrowly avoided being charged with conspiracy.