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http://www.asahi.com/english/national/K2002070300361.html

 

Radicals target Japanese labs

 

The Asahi Shimbun

 

Medical researchers' stolen data appears on the Net.

 

A British-based animal rights group with a history of

violent threats is posting images on its Web site that

it says offer proof that five Japanese universities

are mistreating animals in experiments.

 

Members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC)

trespassed on laboratory facilities at Osaka

University, Juntendo University, Kyoto Prefectural

University, Osaka Prefectural University and Kansai

Medical University to film inside the premises and

steal materials to back the group's accusations,

sources said.

 

Among the accusations that have appeared on its Web

site since June, SHAC cites animals being hit with a

metal bar, vocal cords being removed from dogs and

animals being kept in filthy cages.

 

Officials of the universities concerned denied SHAC's

accusations against their respective laboratories.

 

The group was formed in 1999 with the aim of closing

down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), a world-renowned

medical research laboratory that conducts animal

testing. SHAC has made a name for itself for its

radical stance and illegal methods.

 

``Our animal tests are performed appropriately and we

have no connection with the HLS,'' an official at

Osaka University said.

 

The universities reported the cases to police and

began tightening security. SHAC members said they

chose the five universities for the lax security at

their lab facilities.

 

Two foreigners apparently linked to the group gained

access to Osaka University's lab last summer, when

they presented a letter of introduction supposedly

written by a British researcher, university officials

said. The letter was later found to be a fake.

 

Officials also learned the two members had entered

other facilities on campus and stole videos produced

by university researchers.

 

Officials of Juntendo University, meanwhile,

discovered their breach of security when they saw the

SHAC Web site. The university formed a committee to

investigate the matter.

 

HLS conducts research on new medicine for

pharmaceutical companies by experimenting on monkeys

and dogs. The company has contracts to do research

with most of Japan's leading pharmaceutical firms,

which account for about 20 percent of the company's

sales.

 

SHAC's radical activities have earned the group

widespread attention in Britain, where one of its

leaders received a prison sentence in 2000 for

threatening to kill an HLS employee. The group has

also carried out an intimidation campaign against HLS

shareholders and banks that do business with the

company.

 

A leading SHAC member told The Asahi Shimbun: ``We

used appropriate means for our investigations. We

disclosed the truth by using our brains. This is just

the beginning of our attack on animal testing in

Japan. We will continue entering laboratory facilities

to warn them that having anything to do with HLS will

be a disadvantage.''(IHT/Asahi: July 3,2002)

 

 

 

 

 

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