Protests and Criminal Acts on the Rise in Europe, Says Security Official
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Andrew Jackson, deputy head of security at Novartis in Basel, Switzerland, has observed an increase in protests and criminal acts in Europe.
Last year, incidents outside the United States and United Kingdom rose by nearly 50% to 97, and there have been 15 events reported this year.
Jackson believes that British activists traveling abroad and the availability of budget flights to Basel have contributed to the rise in extremist activity.
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Andrew Jackson, deputy head of security at Novartis in Basel, Switzerland, says that industry is also being affected.
On 9 February, Novartis’s offices in Barcelona were vandalized during a protest, and Jackson says that there has been an overall increase in both legal demonstrations and illegal acts.
“We’ve had to increase the security of some of our facilities in Europe,” he says.
Novartis says that incidents outside the United States and United Kingdom rose by nearly 50% last year to 97.
There have been 15 events so far this year.
Jackson believes that the protests and criminal acts are being fuelled in part by British activists travelling abroad.
“There is a perception that EU law enforcement has something of a soft touch,” he says.
Jackson says that he has noticed a correlation between availability of budget flights to Basel and extremist activity.
“It makes for a fun weekend,” he notes wryly.
But not everyone agrees that the British crackdown is behind increased activity elsewhere in Europe.
Activists do occasionally go abroad to protest, says Amanda Richards, a spokesperson for SPEAK, an animal-rights group based in Northampton, UK, which has led a campaign against a primate laboratory at Oxford University (see Nature 438, 716; 2005).
But she believes that the rise in Europe is due primarily to rising awareness on the continent.
“It’s mainly people is the countries themselves,” she says.
SPEAK has been contacted by several individuals and groups in Europe who want to organize events against animal testing, she adds.
Janseen says that in the Netherlands at least, the government now appears to be taking animal-rights extremism more seriously.
On 12 February, the Dutch parliament passed a motion to support the use of animal testing and condemning extremist acts.
Janseen says that he hopes the motion will be followed by more rigorous law enforcement.
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