REPRESSION AGAINST ANIMAL ACTIVISTS ESCALATES AT AN UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL
Even if the investigation is still in progress, we wanted to communicate on the repressive harassment that members of the Animal1st collective are currently undergoing, because what is happening is serious.
We want to testify about these events, because it concerns the whole animalist movement, so it's essential to spread it widely.
If after reading this situation you are wondering how to help us, there are several ways:
- Visibility - At the end of the investigation we will have a trial, and its visibility will be essential for us. By widely distributing these reports, you're already helping us.
- Contacts - If you have any among media, journalists, independent media, social struggles, they will be precious to us!
- Financially - a permanent fund has been open since the creation of the collective, the link is in the tab "make a donation".
Whatever you can do, thank you!The antispeciesist struggle is at a turning point. Criminalizing one animalist is criminalizing them all.
FACTS
On Tuesday, June 8, between 6 and 7 am, 7 police teams (including members of the PSIG and computer units) intervened in 6 different departments, to arrest 8 anti-speciesist activists who were only released after 35 hours of custody, and sometimes more than 10 hours of examination. Two activists had already been arrested, interviewed and searched on November 10, 2020, and two others were arrested on June 24, 2021.
The oldest facts were in December 2019. For some of us, the charges blacken 2 full pages, mainly minor degradations. Minor damages, defamation (and this famous accusation of "criminal conspiracy", we will come back to it) which are however enough to justify almost a year and a half of investigation, 9 searches, and a dozen of people interviewed. They even went to analyse the painting of the tags in the farms... If there was not enough budget for DNA tests in the Elisa Pilarsky case, don't worry, it seems that for graffiti on a wall it doesn't cause any problem.
Dozens and dozens of gendarmes were mobilized, from criminal brigades, since this was the request of Mr. Arnaud Marie, public prosecutor at the court of Le Mans (a city whose mayor is none other than Stéphane Le Fol, former minister of agriculture...). The major of the police of Mayenne (53) will admit it during the examinations, these manpower were specifically mobilized and these important means deployed because: "agribashing is enough"...
All this for tags on walls and A4 sheets glued with flour.
We recall that for having ransacked the office of a minister, union members of the FNSEA have been fined 1500€...
SEARCHES
About fifty seals just on the search of a single home on November 10, and probably twice that number in total on the 9 searches. They take everything, they rake it up, because they are authorized, incited to do so. All the Animal1st merchandising, dozens of notes, notebooks, documents, more than 10 000€ in cash, and maybe as much in electronic material, phones, computers, tablets, drones, and even a vehicle.
The purpose of a search is to seize clues, only if they "have a link with the investigation and are useful for the demonstration of the truth" (Code of Criminal Procedure). How can we explain this zeal in this case? The objective here isn't only the demonstration of the truth, but also punishment- searches. Sanctions even before any sentences. And this was admitted for the seized vehicle: "If you had enough on your accounts we wouldn't have taken the car", or the seizure of jewels: "In case you could not pay your fine, we keep your jewels to resell them".
Most of the objects seized have NO connection with the facts, these searches are neither more nor less than legalized burglary.
At the time of the searches, and until the trial, we are all presumed innocent. The role of the investigators is to prove guilt, not to punish, nor to secure potential fines for complainants from a private sector. The ONLY reason to justify these practices is the simple fact that we are animal rights activists.
But go ahead, take it all away. Because the day when we really have nothing left to lose will also be the day when we will be more rebellious and more offensive than ever...
ANIMALS UNDER "SEALS"
The sanction is also psychological. By attacking people who take the risk of welcoming animals out of the hell of breeding, it's the fear that they want to install. What they are looking for, and it is clearly assumed by the prosecutor of Le Mans, is to break a whole movement.
They have been looking for 5 lambs in the whole department of Mayenne for weeks. Animals found and/or in an illegal situation are, since they are considered as objects, also put "under seal", as it's the case for several individuals today. To be clear, this means that they remain in the care of the people who took them waiting if they should be returned to their torturers, to be slaughtered or to be sexually exploited for the females. If not, they will have to be bought at the price of meat.
This also means, for example, that in case of a medical emergency, the people in whose homes they are, are forbidden to get a veterinarian. They will have to go through the police first.
In another case, the public prosecutor of Evreux had personally insisted on recovering two turkeys from a camp of nearly 10,000 turkeys 5 months earlier, even though the farmer did not want this.
They don't understand that each act of injustice revolts us more and more.
EXAMINATIONS METHODS
Examinations were led in a perverse way, intrusive in our private lives, in our intimacy. Psychological violence is a weapon of choice. All blows are allowed, since it's the law that authorizes it. Attacking animals, children, judging the efficiency of our methods, the progress of our fights, playing on hopes, sorrows, doubts... The objective is to put down a resistance movement that they can't control. And that's why, contrary to what they say, it's FAITHFULLY because our targets and our speeches are right that the repression is so strong.
The other big injustice of the antispeciesist struggle is that no one is neutral. Speciesism is so anchored in our civilizations, so commonplace, from the youngest age, that nobody can or dares to question it. It's the characteristic of a totalitarian ideology.
Each person who questions, judges or condemns us, does it with the victims we defend in their stomach. Each person therefore feels personally attacked by our speeches, in his way of life, in his habits and his culture. And especially in the rural areas concerned by the facts.
Collabos justify this repression by the risk of "accidents" during intrusions in farms. By "accident", they mean a farmer who sends an activist to the hospital or morgue. Basically, if one day there are deaths among animal activists, it will be our fault...
And this threat has been brandished for a while. "Honestly, they deserve it", as Christiane Lambert, President of the FNSEA, dared to say on RTL. Understand also that in this situation, violence will not be condemned. The idea is absolutely not to "protect" us. Our complaints about death threats remain in the bottom of the drawers, while the instructions are to be in charge of the animalist files first.
With the murders of women being committed almost daily by ex-husbands who are KNOWN from police, it's hard to believe that this is the "national priority"...
DNA AND "RIGHTS"
Refusing to take DNA is an offence that is added to the list of facts judged at trial. This doesn't prevent them from putting toothbrushes under seal to recover it without our agreement.
Our rights are only illusory. The right to silence? We obviously can't be forced to speak at an examination. So what are we being sold here? A right to not answer that theoretically can't be held against us. Theoretically. Except that keeping our silence considerably increases our chances of ending up in pre-trial detention or under judicial supervision, as a punishment.
"PROTECT AND SERVE"
Whether directly or indirectly, the police behave AGAINST the victims we defend, the victims who die, since it chooses to defend the "victims" who kill, the complaining breeders.
For example take animals away from people who fight for their rights, to put them in the hands of those who torture and slit their throats, and this from people who claim to be working for "justice", this is truly a demonstration of the ignominy of our species and our society, and everyone should question this.
"Protect and serve"? You are protecting the greatest injustice in history and serving the greatest criminals. You are not peacekeepers, you are guardians of the war against animals.
MESSAGE TO ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
There is also a message in this case for animal activists who strongly condemn, and therefore do not support (or even condemn) openly activism or the victims of this repression. The actions targeted by this investigation were anonymous. And now, the repression is much more intense, and all the methods much more intrusive.
Three things must be understood:
- First, when there is a strong political willpower, as it's the case here, to find the authors of the facts, hoods don't hinder the investigation...
- Secondly, it's the message of the action, its offensiveness, its target, that triggers the state reply. And it's exactly when the message is radical, the targets are right, and the speech is offensive, that it's then considered as a threat to the system that we fight. The violence of repression is an indicator of the sustainability of our activist choices. Activism who's not fought is activism that doesn't bother anyone.
- And thirdly, more we will be to attack frontally the culprits, more it will be complex to immobilize us, as it's more and more the case. The greatest weapon of repression is fear. If we collectively give in to fear, the victims of husbandry lose their allies.
OPPRESSION AND REPRESSION
Repression is an unfortunate part of all social struggles, and we know that we expose ourselves to it by disobeying. Communicating about it doesn't make us lose sight of the particularity of ours, we are not the direct victims of speciesism. They suffer oppression, we suffer repression.
But we are not going to endure without saying anything. There are conflicts of interest, financial and ideological, and a political willpower to break people, and more broadly a whole movement of opposition to the status quo and the revolting inaction of power on these issues.
We swear that every minute spent in the gloomy cell of a police station reminds us of the sinister fate of these animals that haunt our thoughts. Captivity, deprivation of freedom, the first of the endless list of violence suffered by the slaves of the Breeding Industry. In their case, there isn't hope of escape, no prospect of improvement, no comforting thought, because they didn't know that. They are condemned to go in circles (when they can) until the only possible outcome, the departure for the slaughter.
Each question of the investigators shows us how invisible the victims of the husbandry are to the world. Not a word about them from the representatives of "justice", not a single one, not a consideration, while the hours of examinations continue.
We will face the consequences, as we should proudly face being offenders of laws that allow the industrialized killing of vulnerable innocents, and still do in 2021, when the whole world knows it's not necessary.
The only true acts of Justice and Truth are those that the Animalist Resistance performs, in these camps, these places of violence, which represent the greatest shame in the history of humanity.