Mel Broughton is no terrorist. I know him and he is a gentle soul, totally selfless and fighting for the animals in a pacifist way. I've joined the SPEAK demos in Oxford and London and I have great admiration for the selflessness of this group. What do they gain by trying to stop the building of the Oxford lab? Absolutely nothing and they risked being jailed and be called terrorists when they are the most compassionate and lovely people I know.
They are also fearless and determined but they don't do any harm to anybody. They are against vivisection because of its cruelty and its uselessness. Vivisection is a con. There are scientific methods available using human cells but the British government gives little money to these methods to be developed and give loads of money for so-called 'scientists' who use animals and kill the animals and many people because they used the wrong subjects to experiment on. The pharmaceutical industry is very rich as well as very ruthless. Everybody knows of the wonder drugs they make and test on animals and some time later take off the market because it killed lots of people. Vivisection is a fraud. The new methods of using human cells are real science.

Isabel Reinhards is correct in what she says. Del Broughton is a kind and compassionate individual whose only "crime" is to oppose the disgusting cruelty of vivisection in all its vile forms. The only ones to gain anything from animal tested drugs are the mercenery drug companies and not the 20,000 British victims killed and hospitalised each year from adverse drug reactions. Anyone who dares to speak out against this is automatically branded a terrorist and relentlessly hounded by the Establishment. What a disgustingly corrupt system we all have to existing under.

Of course Isabel is right, I know that SPEAK is a good organization that exposes this university for what they do and it's unnecessary cruelty to animals! Animal testing and vivisection has been proven to be ineffective to human health as well as dangerous, please go to www.vivisectionfraud and see what a con this is! Animal rights activists are all about pro life and are very compassionate people who care for humans too, this is why animal testing should stop as it harms all life, I wish people would just see this!

Last comment should read www.vivisectionfraud.com
Please do visit the site, it is very informative!

I would also urge everyone to visit the website above. It is easy for people to label caring activists as 'terrorists' when they do not have the knowledge of the truth about vivisection. It is the duty of the authorities and the media in modern society to provide access to all the relevant information, not to provide a biassed view. It never ceases to amaze me how seemingly negative news about animal rights actions makes the headlines but very rarely do the public demos and associated educational information about animal cruelty make the press. Let the public really understand what Mel and others are fighting for and I am sure that the weight of public opinion will change dramatically.

Mel is a highly intelligent man whose heart and brain are filled with principles, beliefs and the knowledge of what is acceptable, sensible and truthful. Pharmaceutical companies are cold-blooded, profit seeking industries which will do what it takes to make money, out of human animals and non human animals’ misery. Mel opposes this, with as much conviction as I do. He is a warm hearted man with the will to fight against what most people do not even question. If only those could see the harm done to themselves by vivisectors let alone to the sentient beings who are tortured and alone perish at the hands of the same merciless and crude so called scientists. Vivisection is a fraud and I will never support it. Mel is not at terrorist. Vivisectors are the terrorists. They terrify those sentient beings who are unfortunate to agonize and die in their hands. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy
Mel must be released. But as far as I know, there is no justice in this world, or else vivisectors would be those to be judged.

I dont know this man at all, but if I did, I 'd buy him lunch. Respect to you Mel, if so-called scientists had any moral ethics, and if vivisection was banned as it should be, hero's like you wouldnt have to risk going to jail to stop these really cruel totally uneccessary barbaric acts. You sir are a gentleman.

If the general population were more aware of what actually goes on in laboratories, they would also feel this man's passion. It is a strange world where humans can legally mutilate and cause suffering (both physical & mental) to animals, but it is the man or woman who tries to prevent this that is labelled a terrorist. The only extremism involved here is the extreme cruelty to animals. We are sadly living in a time where it is generally accepted that animals have to suffer for progress, but in years to come our grandchildren will look back on this disgusting practice in the same way we look at the doctors who used the poor and disadvantaged for medical research in Victorian times. But until then testers and those ignorant of the pain will continue to justify the unjustifiable to further their own needs and those fighting for the voiceless will continue to try and make this abuse history.

Has this world gone completely insane? How can a (wo)man who helps innocent sentient beings be referred to as a terrorist?
If the same man would blow up a house of a peadophile, the public would call him a hero. Animals and children are innocent. Animals and children need our care and protection. Animals and children are NEVER ours to use and abuse.
Testing "our" drugs on animals does not work, it never has and never will. There are so many different drugs on the market and yet the human species has never been to sick and riddled with so many different diseases than now. Drugs don't heal, they just torture animals (and humans!) and make lots of money for the pharmaceutical companies. These companies don't want healthy people (no money!) they want sick drug addicts!
The real terrorists work inside those labs. They wear white coats and have a killer smile.

"Drugs don't heal, they just torture animals (and humans!)."

Now that's just silly talk, isn't it?

Oxford University is responsible for the suffering and death of thousands of animals; animals like Felix the macaque monkey, who after the University’s researchers had trained him to perform tasks, by depriving him of food and water, had the top of his head sliced off and electrodes forced into his brain; animals like the nine macaque monkeys used in one experiment where they were brain damaged and then had rubber snakes waved in their faces, after which the researchers made a tacit admission about the lack of relevance of their own research.

The animals now entering this hellhole have no-one to speak for them, or fight for them, but us and we will continue the battle against the horrific suffering inflicted upon them in barbaric experiments until vivisection is consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

It may have touched upon a number of points of public concern, while giving the accused some limited 'say'.

Now consider this:

What are we doing to advance the development of non-animal methods of doing basic science to enable researchers to achieve the kind of information they think they need to know without involving animals?

You may say that this would not be our obligation, but those who, while using or endorsing the morally objectionable use of animals in research while making the questionable claim that such research methods could never be supplanted, DO have an implied moral obligation to endorse and support the wholehearted SEARCH for effective, reliable, verifiable non-animal research methods for doing basic science so that researchers will be able to achieve the kinds of information they think they need without involving animals as research subjects?

PHILOSOPHIES that support legal protections for all persons, regardless of species, are not rightly termed "terrorism"

Many things go on in this world under the disguise of something else, including animals rights (as under politics, religion, charity, etc.), BUT I do know that, as SUCH, "animal rights" is a legal position on the natural of the proper legal status of persons qua persons. That "animal rights" is NOT terrorism is very clear analytically.

Mistaken notions abound concerning all kinds of things, including what subconstituencies any any particular society put other populations at risk. However, supporting a status of legal protections for all persons, both human and nonhuman, while obliging all humans to "go vegan", does not constitute "terrorism" in ANY commonly accepted sense of that term, though broad public acceptance of social rights for nonhumans would eventuate in legal rights for nonhumans AND the abolition of animal agriculture of all kinds AND the elimination of all forms of subjugation and depersonalizations (including the leather industry). Basic science would be conducted in other ways, without compromising the bodies of nonhumans.

The viability of those futures is not yet widely accepted - one reason so few people are willing to move from 'moderated compassion' for some nonhumans to a full adoption of a rights-based ethical position regarding nonhumans (Prof. Gary Francione, Rutgers University).

We CAN move there quite confidently, but each incremental step is likely to involve a complex of tedious efforts by large numbers of highly-educated and keenly analytical persons AND broad-ranging good will on the part of the overwhelming majority of humans who share this planet with us.

That second limiting factor may be far MORE problematic in achieving social status of wide-ranging regard than the technical issues involved in cobbling together an enjoyable, safe, health-supporting, ecologically sustainable, and widely-affordable human future that doesn't exploit and abuse nonhuman animals.

Huntington Life Sciences has been cited for program deficiencies in the past. This organization is not one with a moral compass. Mel Broughton, however he may or may not have acted, is obviously passionate about life and how science laboratories waste it. It doesn't take someone from SPEAK or a similar organization to believe that HLS and other labs offer no real value in the way of science. Testing on animals is archaic at best, and barbaric to say the least. Crimes involving property with no person or life as a direct target should not be considered terrorism. Mel Broughton should, if found guilty, receive no more than community service. And in that case, he should be allowed to assist with a program to promote animal welfare and awareness. The people of your country, as well as millions around the world, believe Mel Broughton to be guilty of no crime. He is innocent in the true sense of the word - meaning his love for life and animals brings his soul closer to God. That is not a man who deserves recognition, not a conviction.

Huntington Life Sciences has been cited for program deficiencies in the past. This organization is not one with a moral compass. Mel Broughton, however he may or may not have acted, is obviously passionate about life and how science laboratories waste it. It doesn't take someone from SPEAK or a similar organization to believe that HLS and other labs offer no real value in the way of science. Testing on animals is archaic at best, and barbaric to say the least. Crimes involving property with no person or life as a direct target should not be considered terrorism. Mel Broughton should, if found guilty, receive no more than community service. And in that case, he should be allowed to assist with a program to promote animal welfare and awareness. The people of your country, as well as millions around the world, believe Mel Broughton to be guilty of no crime. He is innocent in the true sense of the word - meaning his love for life and animals brings his soul closer to God. That is a man who deserves recognition, not a conviction.

Mel Broughton is a man who deserves recognition for his efforts and that doesn't mean in the courts, it means a tribute is deserved.

Phew, I think we get the point, Stephanie.

"He is innocent in the true sense of the word - meaning his love for life and animals brings his soul closer to God."

You've astutely identified the very reason we have a legal system, rather than attempting to navigate the waters of crime and punishment with the highly individualistic ideal of the moral compass.

Unfortunately, our legal system does little if anything to protect the lives and rights of animals. Man has no right to cause such pain and death. These research centers have become so outdated and are not monitored as they should be. Their regulations are a joke and too often ignored. They have become sanctioned centers of abuse, participating in such acts that would land the common man in prison and highly fined. The fraud has been reported by many who have left this wasted work.
Many are willing to do what our legal system has failed to do to protect animals. As long as they are abused their will undoubtedly be more action to defend them. Cowards will sit by and do nothing, we need those willing to risk themselves to stop this horror.
We at least can share this information with our friends to continue exposing this torment.