JENNIFER ICHIDA: 2 STRAIGHT HOURS OF BULLHORN HOME DEMO >>

PICTURES & VIDEO

Today over a dozen activists dedicated to ending vivisection met to conduct a protest at the home of Jennifer Ichida. This was another of our weekly home protests. But this time there was something different about our protest - the possession of both a megaphone and an official permit from the Salt Lake City government to use the megaphone for 2 hours. We put it to its maximum use.

At precisely 12 noon that megaphone went blaring and it never stopped until 2 pm. For 2 straight hours Ichida's quiet neighborhood in the avenues became a pulpit for anti-vivisectionists to name and shame her. As one protestor's voice when hoarse from shouting into the bullhorn, we handed it off to another. Almost everyone had their their turn with the bullhorn.

The reaction was mixed - a lot. At one point a group of her neighbors decided to band together like a mob and try and physically oust us - shoving one female protester and grabbing another protester's camera. After realizing we weren't going anywhere, the mob walked away and we continued our demo - reminding them we still had an hour and 40 minutes left of our protest.

People across the street started a barbecue to try and insult us - but really we enjoyed the opportunity to educate more neighbors.

Many many many passersby stopped and took our new leaflet on Ichida - and three separate people got our email and wanted to become more involved. One poor interested passsersby was struck when an anti-free-speech driver sped by and threw an egg. Out of the roughly 15 people standing there, this driver struck the one person who wasn't actually a part of the protest. But this driver did manage to recruit one new anti-vivisection activist, as after that experience he became emboldened to become involved.

More and more neighbors kept coming out of the their houses to see what the commotion was - and finally after 45 minutes police arrived. At first they belligerently told us to turn off the megaphone. But we produced the copy of our permit for them and informed them that we went through all the legal means to obtain this permit. They seemed dumbfounded and amazed that the city granted a megaphone permit to be used for 2 hours in a residential area - but that's not our problem. That's Ichida's. After looking in the statutes for 15 minutes to try and find something to charge us with, the police gave up and left. Leaving us there to demo for another hour and 15 minutes.

Everyone at the demo agreed this was our best one yet and you can believe that our trusty bullhorn will be making appearances at many demos to come.

At the end of the demo, we took a moment to remind ourselves how serious how struggle is, and to remember people like Mark, Suzanne, and Teresa; three activists in England who were just arrested for doing demonstrations like the one we just did against the vile lab Huntingdon Life Sciences. We all re dedicated ourselves to ending vivisection and reminded ourselves that in any serious political movement - there will be sacrifices made and casualties. With these three tremendous activists now in jail, it's only up to free activists like us to double up our efforts to keep the pressure going in whatever way we can.