Sabs with baseball bats attack fishermen

[Mr. X]

From the Countryside Alliance (one of the incidents also featured in the Times on Sat. according to the Dorset 2006 thread):

"A tougher line needed on bully-boy tactics

You may have noticed a story and editorial in last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, focusing on a mindless act of thuggery against anglers at a Lancashire fishery on 12th August. Unable to “sab” a cancelled driven grouse shoot at the Duke of Westminster’s estate, 30 or so so-called “animal lovers,” in balaclavas and armed with baseball bats, dropped by the Bank House fly-fishery nearby to intimidate anglers (including the fishery owner’s mother and a lady angler whose rod, a gift from her father, was broken) and generally direct their anger at other innocent people.

Rural people know that such bullying and violence have been taking place for years, and we are all well aware that animal welfare has nothing to do with these attacks. But taking the temperature of the public mood (the Richard and Judy show invited the victims onto their show) tolerance for such behaviour is on the wane.

The media is now taking a strong line on animal rights activism, with the Telegraph leader calling the Bank House saboteurs “people haters” and the Observer, which reported on Sunday that “The number of company directors seeking special government protection from kidnappers and animal rights extremists has trebled in the past year” noting that many had received “menacing” letters from activists.

We must be stronger on such behaviour and not just tut in disapproval. Also this week a young man died after an infection thought to have been passed on by a rabbit he shot. His family has since, it has been reported in the Telegraph, received phone calls from activists saying his death is the “rabbit’s revenge”. This despicable behaviour is a clear sign that things have gone too far.

We must think of animal rights violence as contemptible no matter in whose name it is perpetrated. Whilst angling is not under direct or immediate political threat, Martin Salter MP got it dead wrong this week when he said that “it is simply untrue for the Countryside Alliance and others to argue that anglers are more or less likely to be targeted by these characters as a result of the hunt ban”.

Bullying is bullying, and animal rights activism is at the forefront of a somehow acceptable face of assault, violence and intimidation. Indeed, Mr Salter and his anti-hunting colleagues appeased the animal rights movement in their class-driven crusade to get hunting banned. At no stage in the recent past has Mr Salter ever condemned animal rights abuse against the rural community. His deafening silence then being in direct contrast, but no more convincing, than his sudden attack of conscience now. We must stop splitting hairs and call on the authorities to meet this problem head on, right across the board, and the likes of Mr Salter to do rather more than jump on passing bandwagons.

Simon Hart "