Is This An Act of Terrorism?
In a post following the Boston Marathon bombing, Big Think blogger Derek Beres suggested we need to redefine the term “terrorism.”
Beres noted that the animal rights activist groups Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front were responsible for the most “terrorist” acts over the last decade. While the combined 84 actions taken by these groups didn’t cause any deaths, that may have just been a matter of luck. As Beres argues, “Destroying property and burning mansions are not safe endeavors for getting any point across.”
However, a number of so-called ‘Ag-Gag Bills’ are picking up steam in Congress and state legislatures that blur the lines between people who use bombs to blow up buildings and people who merely use cameras to record instances of animal cruelty.
You can read Beres’s insightful post here.
Now, consider this twist.
Scientists at the University of Milan reported yesterday that they may have lost years of work on autism and schizophrenia research after the Italian animal rights activist group Fermare Green Hill occupied their lab and tampered with their experimental protocols. The activists made off with an estimated 100 mice and rabbits. Some of the mice are expected to die very quickly outside of their controlled environment.
“It will take three people at least a year to build up the colonies we had of mouse models of different psychiatric diseases,” said the neurobiologist Michela Matteoli who lost most of her research.
And so if their actions are the cause of more human suffering, has Fermare Green Hill committed an act of terror?
What do you think ? . . .
