MAKING ANIMAL RIGHTS A THREAT AGAIN!
(An Interview With Activists From S.O.A.R.)
S.O.A.R. (Student Organization for Animal Rights) was formed three years ago to fulfil the Twin Cities need for a civil-disobiedience, pro-direct action, animal rights group. Since S.O.A.R. began, they have been responsible for heightening public awareness of animal rights issues. It's Saturday, August 9, 1997 at 3 o'clock. We are outside of the Olmsted County Adult Detention Center in Minnesota doing jail support for the 4 activists that have just been arrested for protesting the National Trappers Associations' 4 day convention.
KIM: Even though I was there, why don't you, Joolie, tell about what happened today.
JOOLIE: This was an action with activists coming from as far as Seattle and Ohio to disrupt the annual N.T.A. conference. Basically, it's a gathering with over 1,000 trappers from all over the country to demonstrate more ways to torture and kill animals for their fur. This is a group who is not swayed by pamphlets or bloody pictures. They are the ones who supply the animals for these bloody pictures. They are the ones out there killing. Our focus today was not to leaflet, but to try and shut them down.
KIM: So once we arrived at the N.T.A. convention explain exactly what we did Laurie.
LAURIE: 30 of us marched with banners and posters, chanting toward the main entrance of the campground. Once we got there, the chanting and energy escalated. We randomly blocked cars and laid down in the road.
KIM: Cars, mostly Ford trucks, had to turn away. The security, which were volunteers from a hunting association, attempted to push us out of the way, but we kept the pressure on. After 30 minutes the cops showed up. I was videotaping all this at that time.
LAURIE: There were 2 arrests at that entrance when cops forced us towards the sidewalks.
JOOLIE: One activist was punched by a cop and thrown onto the hood of a cop car. Unfortunately, for the cops, this only made us stronger. We got all the badge numbers and names. After a while we moved the protest around the corner to a blocked off entrance where tables of dead animal skins were on display.
KIM: 2 more activists were arrested at this time. One cop had a canine on us, making threats that the dog would bite us if we did not comply with his orders.
JOOLIE: The charges for the 4 activists range from Disorderly Conduct to Assault (Assault for the activist who was brutalized by the cop).
LAURIE: It is typical for furriers and fur trappers to have a violent reaction to our demonstrations. Security guards had to hold back a few of the trappers.
KIM: O.K. Let's hear about other recent S.O.A.R. activities.
LAURIE: On July 20th, 8 of us traveled to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and worked with other activists from Green Bay, Oshkosh and even Ohio, to blockade one of Green Bay's slaughterhouses. There were 3 entrances to the slaughterhouse. We had 2 "octopus formations" stationed at each of the first 2 gates. An "octopus formation" is where 4 or 5 people have U-locks connected to their necks around each other in a circle or locked to a center U-lock, lying down and spread out. So we did that once we saw a truck with cattle approach the slaughterhouse. Before that it was a regular protest. The word got out about our demonstration before we even got there. Actually, there are 2 slaughterhouses in Green Bay. So the 2 slaughterhouses were blocked off with Semi's and security in fear of what we were going to do. 8 were arrested and charged with Disorderly Conduct. Media coverage was massive and positive, because there hadn't been this intense of an action before in Green Bay.
KIM: All this happened a few weeks before the big Mall Of America incident, right?
JOOLIE: Right. Because of a recent court ruling in a case against 4 S.O.A.R. activists leafletting against fur at Macy's inside of Mall Of America, that made the common areas of M.O.A. public property due to city money that helped build it, S.O.A.R. staged a protest. With the 62 page judges decision in hand, 20 S.O.A.R. activists protested inside the M.O.A. in front of a Macy's entrance. We were immediately greeted by tons of security, but we continued to hold signs and leaflet the growing crowd. A cop falsely arrested 6 activists on criminal trespass charges. They said we had to ask for permission, but you never have to ask permission to protest in a public place. That wraps up Mall Of America.
KIM: Future actions are constantly planned at S.O.A.R. meetings. They are every Tuesday at 7pm on the third floor of Coffman Union at the U of M, east bank campus. Tell me S.O.A.R.'s stance on the A.L.F. (Animal Liberation Front).
JOOLIE: S.O.A.R. is totally supportive of any action taken for the animals done under the guidelines of the A.L.F. The guidelines are that no physical harm comes to human or non-human animals. DISCLAIMER: S.O.A.R. does not participate in or encourage those actions, but we totally support them. The A.L.F. activists are people who risk their freedom for animal liberation in actions from grafitti to laboratory and mink farm raids, to burning animal abusive businesses down. For more information, contact these midwest organizations by writing to: S.O.A.R. 235 CMU, 300 Washington Ave S.E. MPLS, MN 55406 or call #(612) 624-0422 / SOAR @ WASTE.ORG WWW. SOAR.WASTE.ORG. and also write to: S.P.A.R.E. (Students Promoting Animal Rights and Emancipation) UWGB, Student Org. Office 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay, WI 54311 or call #(414) 430- 7069 / SPARE @ gbvaxa.uwgb