UPF'S STATEMENT ON HOME DEMOS >>

The Salt Lake City Council has passed an ordinance on a 5-2 vote banning "targeted residential picketing" within 100 feet of the "targeted residence" and classified such an act as a class B misdemeanor. This ordinance was passed in response to the campaign against primate vivisection at the University of Utah at the prodding of the University. We feel that protesting outside of residences is a justifiable and legitimate means of social change and we oppose the passage of this ordinance. Nevertheless, we feel that this ordinance will have a minimal effect on the campaign to end primate research at the University. While stifling the rights of all Salt Lake residents, this ordinance will do nothing to stop the determination of this campaign to continue to find creative and effective ways of ending the torture of nonhuman primates.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CAMPAIGN

The Utah chapter of the Primate Freedom Project started in the Fall of 2003. Its first matter of business was collecting information about the research programs at the University, tabling at University events, and attempting to meet with University officials to discuss the research programs involving primates.

We first made a name for ourselves when we had a lengthy legal battle against the University over access to protocols of animal research programs. These protocols of publicly-funded research projects spell out in great detail how experiments are being carried out on animals. The Utah State Records Committee found in our favor and ordered the University to release such information. Subsequently, the University attempted to levee enormous fees for access to this information, and the legal battle continued.

In the midst of this legal challenge, Utah Primate Freedom sent letters to the president of the University of Utah and the president of the University of Utah medical school asking for private meetings to discuss the use of primates in research. These requests were ignored.

We also hand delivered a letter to the office of Audie Leventhal requesting a public debate. You can read this letter here.

While our appeal to the fee assessment was pending in district court, the University lobbied successfully for the passage of an amendment to the public records statute making it more difficult to gain access to information on research programs using animals. You can read our letter to the Utah Senate regarding this bill here.

The primary sponsor of this bill, Senator Bell, refused to meet with or speak with any representative from Utah Primate Freedom. He referred all questions about the bill to the University legal counsel.

In response to the University's refusal to hand over these records, the state's complicity in such secrecy, the University administration's refusal to engage in dialogue, and Leventhal's refusal to engage in a public debate, we decided to take the campaign in a new direction. We held our first home demonstration in January 2005, a year and a half after the campaign was originally launched.

HOME DEMONSTRATIONS

Protesting outside homes is not a concept unique to the animal rights movement. Movements of all flavors have utilized home demonstrations. One of the earliest examples occurred during the civil rights movement by Father James Groppi. Father Groppi picketed outside the homes of circuit court judges to protest their membership in the white-only Fraternal Order of Eagles. For his demonstrations, Groppi received support from Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in general. You can read about Groppi's life here.

In 2003, Greenpeace participated in a protest outside the home of former Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson. Warren Anderson was the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the worst industrial disaster in history, the Bhopal gas leak. You can find a summary of the protest, as well as a picture of Mr. Anderson at his private home at the Greenpeace website under the title "Carbide Criminal Found".

A notable recent residential picketing campaign was led by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan. After her son Casey died in Iraq, Cindy Sheehan led a 24-hour vigil outside the vacation ranch of President Bush in Crawford, Texas. She has been arrested in connection with these home demonstrations, and her actions have garnered national media attention to the movement against the U.S. occupation in Iraq and have made her a leader in the anti-war movement.

So what is the reasoning behind the actions and tactics of Father Groppi, Greenpeace, Cindy Sheehan, and Utah Primate Freedom?

Activists use home demonstrations to send the message that individuals ought to be held personally morally accountable for the actions they participate in at the workplace. Historically, too many atrocities have been carried out by individuals who have told themselves that they are "just doing what they are told" or "just doing their job." This shifting of moral responsibility onto a faceless bureaucratic institution has resulted in great suffering.

Just as Warren Anderson is responsible for the deaths of Indians in Bhopal and President Bush is responsible for the torture being carried out at Abu Ghraib, so too are Alessandra Angelucci, Audie Leventhal, and Jennifer Ichida responsible for the torture and death of monkeys inside the University of Utah lab. If Angelucci, Leventhal, and Ichida were to pull the plug on their own personal involvement and support of this atrocity, many fewer monkeys would die and suffer.

Activists also use home demonstrations to protest the profiteers of atrocities. The phrase "blood money" is frequently used when describing an individual's personal tacit approval of an atrocity when they accept money resulting from such an atrocity. Angelucci, Ichida, and Leventhal are all recipients of such "blood money" and they are thus, legitimate targets of protest and "naming and shaming".

Society is threatened by  "naming and shaming" outside homes because it threatens the societal maxim that we can be excused from personal responsibility for actions carried out at work. Utah Primate Freedom feels this is a harmful societal maxim. We feel that if more home demonstrations occurred, we would have a society that is less complicit in atrocious activities. Perhaps if home demonstrations outside the homes of executives of Halliburton had occurred earlier, we would have seen a measurable effect in stifling the United States occupation efforts in Iraq. No one wants their personal name associated with torture and aggressive war; these acts continue to be carried out because culpability for these crimes continues to lie at the feet of nebulous organizations and corporations. In short, no individual is "feeling the heat" of embarrassment or moral shame for Halliburton's defacto crimes . The same can be said of primate vivisection.

For many animal rights activists, home demonstrations are also a natural response to the realization that animals are trapped inside the labs 24/7. The suffering does not end for these primates when Leventhal clocks out at 5 to go home and relax. The suffering is endless for these animals. The boredom and despair of life inside a steel box is constant. Leventhal's actions are causing suffering around the clock. So why should he only be responsible from 9 to 5?

We knew the University would eventually respond to our campaign one way or another. Primate research brings in millions of dollars to the University. Their budgets are prepared relying on that steady stream of federal grant dollars. When the vivisectors appealed the administration to do something to rein us in, they had a multi-million dollar bargaining chip they brought to the table. If they left (or quit), so did the research dollars. So the University fought back.

THE ORDINANCE

In the April 2007, Utah Primate Freedom was contacted  by Mayor Rocky Anderson's office. The University had been persistently asking him to endorse restrictions or an outright ban on protesting in residential areas. His office wanted to meet with representatives from Utah Primate Freedom to discuss our perspective on the issue.

Mayor Anderson has a generally positive reputation amongst activist circles, including animal rights activist circles. His participation in rallies against the United States occupation in Iraq gives him a personal understanding and appreciation of what would drive an individual to assemble and protest the policies of their government. As such, in general, Salt Lake City is a comfortable city for protesters to assemble and dissent.

We were pleased we were given an opportunity to meet with him, or any public official, to discuss issues relating to our campaign. We accepted the offer without hesitation. We intended to discuss not only our protest activities, but also the activities of the vivisectors at the University. We wanted to ask  Mayor Anderson what he might be able do to help animals trapped in the University labs.

Unfortunately, at the last second, Mayor Anderson's office cancelled the meeting. They stated the Mayor was too busy at the time to meet with us, but assured us that the ordinance would remain off the table until we could meet for this discussion. We called the office periodically, but his office continued to say that he was still too busy.

We later discovered, two weeks before the bill was going to go to a vote by the City Council, that the Mayor's office had in fact been working on the ordinance. They researched similar ordinances enacted in other cities and attempted to model the one in Salt Lake after other cities. He had numerous meetings and conversations with representatives from the University, but not one with us. We were very disappointed that the Mayor would resort to such underhanded and undemocratic moves. It is very unlike him.

We also find it hypocritical that Mayor Anderson supports a bill banning protesting in residential areas while simultaneously he speaks out in support of anti-war protester and home demonstrator Cindy Sheehan. (Ironically enough, McLennan County also passed an ordinance in response to her residential protests. Demonstrators were subsequently arrested. This unconstitutional ordinance forced Cindy to purchase 5 acres of land to continue her vigil on her own private property.)

The University was able to spin the message and control the committee and the mayor. They were led to believe that life-saving and humane research was being carried out by brave philanthropists at the University of Utah, and crazy zealots with irrational anti-human philosophies were attempting to terrorize them and their families. It is of course no surprise that the ordinance passed.

THE FUTURE OF THE CAMPAIGN

Despite our adamant feeling that such tactics are justifiable, we are a lawful organization and we will obey the new ordinance while it is being appealed by the Anti-Hunger Action Committee. (Editors Note: Utah Primate Freedom has no affiliation with the Anti-Hunger Action Committee.)


So what does this new law mean for the campaign?

It will make us find new, fresh, and creative ways of continuing the campaign. Undoubtedly, the University hoped that Senator Bill's amendment to GRAMA would also demoralize and quash the campaign - and it had the opposite effect. Similarly, we've noticed that the number of people consistently showing up at home demonstrations has steadily increased for the past 6 months. This growing assembly is not going to give up and go home. While we feel it is a strategic mistake to discuss details regarding our future plans, it is safe to say that campaign activities will resume and increase during the Fall semester at the University of Utah.

We are not surprised by the recent passage of the ordinance. The University of Utah will try everything to fight back against individuals interfering with their financial operations (which is what primate research is). This isn't the first time they've appealed for new laws in response to our campaign, and we're sure it won't be the last time. We're in this for the long haul.

We pride ourselves in our absolute determination and dedication for those animals. We think of nothing but the endless suffering and despair of monkeys at the University of Utah labs. These are animals with minds and emotions that are very much like our own. Their suffering is no less. A rhesus macaque mother feels despair when her son or daughter is separated at an early age that is very much like the despair we would feel. The boredom of the laboratory environment has caused monkeys inside the University's lab to self-mutilate and chew off their own figures. This type of self-mutilation is also seen in the worst cases of depression in humans . These animals struggle to free themselves from the restraint chairs of Angelucci, Ichida, and Leventhal. They do not understand the experiment they are involved in, nor are they able to give their consent. Simply put, what happens inside the U of U animal lab is evil; it is an atrocity.