A day of remembrance was held for animal rights activist Barry Horne last Sunday at Camp Beagle, Cambridgeshire. The event was attended by sixty fellow activists and campaigners, some travelling from as far as Devon and Sommerset to attend.
Horne, born in Northampton in 1952, became involved in the animal rights movement at the age of thirty-five. One of his first actions was an attempt to free a dolphin called Rocky, who had been held alone in captivity for almost twenty years. The action was unsuccessful, but undeterred, Horne and fellow activists continued to campaign for Rocky’s release. The campaign worked, and in 1991 Rocky was transferred from Morecambe Dolphinarium to a lagoon reserve in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The UK’s last dolphinarium closed in 1993.
Horne would continue to be involved in numerous actions targeting the vivisection industry. He and others would lay much of the foundational thinking for the direct-action tactics we see being used by activists today.
Horne was jailed in 1991. While in prison his philosophy of resistance and animal liberation evolved. In the June 1993 edition of his Support Animal Rights Prisoners newsletter, Horne wrote: “The animals continue to die and the torture goes on in greater and greater measure. Peoples’ answer to this? More veggie burgers, more Special Brew and more apathy. There is no longer any Animal Liberation Movement. That died long ago. All that is left is a very few activists who care, who understand and who act … If you don’t act, then you condone. If you don’t fight, then you don’t win. And if you don’t win then you are responsible for the death and suffering that will go on and on.”
After being released in 1994, Horne began a campaign of direct action, selectively sabotaging the infrastructure that facilitated animal cruelty, exploitation, and death – planting incendiary devices designed to ignite when no-one was around. During the campaign there was no harm to life. Horne, under round-the-clock surveillance, was arrested and tried in 1997. He received an eighteen-year custodial sentence – the longest sentence ever given to an animal rights campaigner, despite the Judge accepting that he “did not intend an attack on human life”.
Horne continued his protests against animal cruelty while in jail, undertaking hunger strikes in January 1997 (lasting 35 days), August 1997 (lasting 46 days) and October 1998 (lasting 68 days). He undertook one final hunger strike on October 21st 2001, which killed him. Horne died on November 5th. The inquest into his death returned an open verdict – it was unable to determine where the responsibility for Horne’s death lay.
Fellow activist Mel Broughton recalled Horne’s focused approach: “He [Horne] undertook the hunger strike to hold the then Labour government accountable for its promise to enact an independent public enquiry into the use of animals in research. He understood the need to force government to listen through direct action but at the same time realised the value of the political arena. One feeds the other.”
Mel Arnold spoke of first meeting Horne in Coventry: “Barry had no ego. He was never out to impress anyone.”
She remembered his loyalty and humour, and how he went out of his way to help and support others. She remembered first hearing of his October 2001 hunger strike and her concern for him, knowing how dedicated he was to the cause. She spoke about Horne’s spirit still evident in today’s protesters and campaigners.
John Curtin, guardian of Camp Beagle, Europe’s longest running animal protest camp, also spoke about how Horne’s spirit prevails. Curtin and Horne shared many experiences in the liberation movement, and he remembers Horne as someone who was “a people person, a kind person, but also brave and a fighter.”
And the fight continues. When the speakers fall silent you can hear the barking and whining of dogs at MBR Acres, a beagle breeding compound across the road that supplies the vivisection industry. It is a cruel place, and Camp Beagle is determined to close it. Behind the razor wire fence and cctv cameras are rows of metal sheds. Inside, beagle puppies – four or five per metal cage – are denied stimulation, human contact, and the freedom of the outdoors. While still only months old, they will be transported to vivisection labs to be abused, assaulted, violated, traumatised, and eventually killed despite the flawed science of animal testing. MBR Acres sells approximately 2,500 puppies per year to the vivisection industry.
As we hold silence for Barry Horne, I remember his words: “If you don’t act, then you condone. If you don’t fight, then you don’t win. And if you don’t win then you are responsible for the death and suffering that will go on and on.”
- Barry Horne (17 March 1952 – 05 November 2001).
©2024 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer
