OPEN SEASON ON CHIP SHOPS BY EXTREMISTS ( Taken from newspaper 14th Jan 2001 )

London - Fish and chip shops have been declared a legitimate target for attack by animal-rights extremists.

Mr Robin Webb, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front , said chip shops could regarded as targets and that a letter-bomb attack on a fish and chip shop in North Wales could herald the start of a wider campaign against the 8,600 fish and chip shops in the country.

Mr Jonathan Davies was opening the morning's post at his family-run fish and chip shop when a nail bomb in a padded envelope exploded. Luckily , neither he nor the 40-odd customers in the shop at the time,were injured, said The Daily Telegraph.

"It went off like a rocket exploding," said Mr Davis,34. "There were nails scattered everywhere but,amazingly , no one was hurt. It fell totally silent. I think everyone was in shock."

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack,which follow similar letter-bomb attacks in Yorkshire and Cheshire.

Mr Webb said that the fishing industries is perceived as being "very,very cruel." 

"With mammals and birds there is a pretence of humane stunning and slaughter, whereas fish are dragged out of the water into an aliene enviroment in which they slowly die," he said. "People, prehaps, don't have the same perception generally about fish as they don't have hands-on contact with them. But from the scienticfic point of view they have a central nervous system and they can suffer and feel pain."

Responds by some on this posting :

1. Sterling ( ALL OUT ASSUALT ) - alloutassault@hotmail.com

There is no problem with wanting to save fish, but i find it rediculous that someone would try to take out a family operating a fish and chip place in order to protest. It is funny to me that some people who fight for human/animal rights could do something so contridictary. And it happens every day. I say if your going to fight, stand up in front of your enemy and make your voice heard, others will follow. Then you have a protest on your hands!

2. Dan McCarthy - digitaliris@nme.com

>"People, prehaps, don't have the same perception generally about fish as they don't have hands-on contact with them.

But if you put your hands on fish it burns them cos your body temperature is much higher than theirs. Surely no self respecting animal liberator would do such a thing *irony

>But from the scienticfic point of view they have a central nervous system and they can suffer and feel pain."

Oddly enough so do people who open letter bombs. Middle class hypocritical fuckwits. Cruelty to animals is essentially a function of capitalism (battery farming, drift net fishing etc), so what do they do? - go for the bottom end of the chain. It's easy to have a conscience about the world when your not trapped in a cycle of poverty (since most people who work in chip shops don't exactly have access to parent funded education to broaden their horizons or expensive ethically produced food); when you can afford to make ethical choices.

Making people change out of fear, a very enlightend point of view. Hitler would have been proud .

3. J.Schizoid - www.mp3.com/schizoid / www.schizoid.org

I support all the different forms of protest that people can choose suited to their personality, skills and motivation level, whether it is checking the label on the products you buy, or forming a human chain in block of a motorcade - any help towards "the cause" is a good thing, though direct action is focused on (and sensationalized and exploited by the media) and given the most attention the most out of all the ways! - there is also boycotts/hungerstrikes/educational seminars/letter writing/donations/artwork!