Animal rights activists plan to export violence

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LONDON -- British animal rights activists are planning to use a training camp next month to export their violent tactics to the European continent and beyond.

The "AR 2006" camp will be held at an undisclosed location on the weekend of June 23 and will feature classes in potentially lethal physical techniques that are described as "self-defense."

The police National Extremism Technical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU), which investigates animal rights extremism, is aware of the event.

The camp is advertised on animal activist Web sites but police say there is little they can do about what appears to be a private meeting of individuals.

"The UK is the center for this kind of activism," said a spokesman for the one group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). "Everyone around the world looks to us for inspiration."

The group has held camps in Britain for the past two years but this is the first where the focus will be on attracting foreign activists who will carry the message of violence around the world.

The SHAC spokesman said that the group would pay to fly people from Russia and Eastern Europe to Britain to learn defense techniques that could be used against security guards at pharmaceutical companies and against hunters.

At previous camps, activists were taught how to deliver punches to key areas of the body and to damage optic nerves by sticking their fingers into adversaries' eyes.

As well as "self-defense" classes, they are likely to discuss how to conduct mailing campaigns, including targeting shareholders, as in the recent letters sent to GlaxoSmithKline's investors.

The spokesman said yesterday that the camp had not been a police matter in the past.