Saturday 19th May
Global Boycott P&G Day XI, Taunton Stall
For the eleventh annual global boycott day, over 140 events took place in; UK, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Sweden, Croatia, Slovenia, Russia, India, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Peru, South Africa, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
In Taunton, a stall was set up at around midday, with plenty of; leaflets, information, petitions, stickers and even Boycott P&G bags.
This covered many campaigns including; Boycott P&G, Take The Cruelty Out Of Cleaning, Boycott IAMS, Save The Goats, Botox Horror (Wickham Labs), Primate Experimentation, Europeans of Medical Progress, SHAC & NYSE Euronext (Blood Money).
The day was spent mainly focussing on Boycott P&G, with activists also peitioning and leafleting in the high street.
As per usual, we recieved huge amounts of support from the public, with many new faces saying hello, including a few older activists dating back to the era of Sea Shepard & Ronnie Lee (ALF).
Body Shop
On the small print of our P&G flyers, it mentioned Body Shop had been taken over by Nestle(i) /L’Oreal (ii), who both contract Animal Experiments.
(i) Pet Food: http://www.buav.org/campaigns/petfood/companies.html
(ii) http://www.naturewatch.org/shoppingguide/loreal_facts.asp, Covance Labs: http://www.covancecampaign.com
Two activists spent over two hours near/outside The Body Shop, which was clearly one of the most effective campaigning techniques of the day. It was unbelievable to hear some of the responses from their customers, including particular individuals who were verbally voicing their concerns to Body Shop managers and staff.
Although not considered a demonstration, frustration grew for the newly found traitors, and after various complaints directed at Body Shop from customers and the public, two police officers appeared in their popular riot ran, followed by two community officers and the Old Market Place security guard.
We were then immediately told to leave the area, and to flyer elsewhere, stressing that we were causing Body Shop’s financial damage, and that we risked arrest if we did not comply.
Despite our attempts to debate over the legality of protesting, let alone merely leafleting & peitioning in one area of the highstreet, it was not possible to get a reply other than “obstruction” and “public order”. Rather than stating a specific obstuction, or specific public order offence we were actually committing, they continued to babble on about how we were breaking the law, FOR FLYERING & PETITIONING!
It was clear the police acted unlawfully, solely to protect Body Shop’s dignity and finance. The right to protest was completely ignored, along with freedom of speach, only to remind us further that we are falling into a police state.
In this frustration, we will be organising a demonstration at Body Shop on Saturday 9th June, which will be in coordination with Avon & Somerset Police State, to ensure that our civil liberties are not stamped on, yet again.
Thanks again for all the support from everyone, who now have a total of 20 peitions to send back to SARC, Animal Aid, Uncaged & BUAV.
Boycott Body Shop
http://www.boycottbodyshop.co.uk
Bury the Body Shop / L’Oreal
http://www.naturewatch.org/shoppingguide/News_loreal_bodyshop.asp
Boycott Procter & Gamble (Uncaged)
http://www.boycottpandg.co.uk/
Take The Cruelty Out Of Cleaning (BUAV)
http://www.gocrueltyfree.org/
