National Demo in Oxford Clashes with Counter Demo!!
									posted 27-2-06
The latest national demo against the building of Oxford Uni`s torture lab, took place on Sat 25th February. In what appeared to be an attempt to provoke trouble, a pro-animal testing counter demo was held on the same day, organised by the recently formed Pro-Test group!! Our coach load of protesters travelled from the West Midlands and joined around 250 others for a noisy demo at the edge of the exclusion zone on South Parks Road. After meeting up, Pro-Test marched to a point just round the corner from us, where they held a short rally, before dispersing by 1.30pm.
	Pro-Test clearly hadn`t got the stamina or the commitment to stick it out any longer!! On the other hand, our demo continued till nearly 3pm, when we marched to Broad Street and listened to speakers. Thanks to Pro-Test, the media were crawling all over our demo & march, in numbers we have never before seen at any demonstration anywhere! Mel Broughton of SPEAK Campaigns, and dozens of other campaigners gave numerous interviews to national TV, radio & newspapers throughout the day. Pro-Test have succeeded in creating more coverage for the SPEAK Campaign than could ever have been dreamed of!!
							At about 3.30pm, Midlands protesters joined others outside the Vodafone store on Cornmarket Street. Vodafone are a major target of SPEAK Campaigns as they donated over £180,000 to Oxford Uni!! Under the watchful eyes of over a dozen police officers, the general public were made aware of Vodafone`s involvement in animal torture & encouraged to boycott them. Hundreds of leaflets were handed out and placards displayed for all to see. After over an hour of naming & shaming, we returned to our coach at 5pm. Thanks to huge amounts of media attention & our determination to achieve victory for the animals, this was another fantastic day. We will return as many times as it takes to ensure the torture lab is never built.
Click here to read a more detailed demo report on the SPEAK website
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