The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) has this to say ...

Barbarash, David
Spokesman, North American ALF Press Office, 1999 - Jan. 2003

"The Animal Liberation Front doesn't really care what humans think of them."
(Quoted in "Save the Chickens" by Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 26, 2000.)

"We don't see the difference between the inherent rights of a human and the inherent rights of an animal."
(Quoted in "Save the Chickens" by Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 26, 2000.)

"I am completely a nonviolent activist. I am quite outraged that I have been charged with the crimes. The RCMP is out to destroy me. We have already had a preliminary hearing and there is not a shred of physical evidence that links me to these crimes. It boggles my mind.''
(Commenting on charges relating to razor blade-rigged envelopes sent to hunting guide outfitters; Boston Globe, Oct. 30, 1999.)

"We do not consider the destruction of property, of things, to be committing violence. How does one do violence against something which is not alive?"
(North American ALF Press Office press release, Oct. 24, 1999.)

"Fur, leather, wool, meat, chicken, dairy - animals do not exist for us to use just because we have a taste for their flesh or their milk. There is even abuse in the dairy industry. To have a cow constantly impregnated or milked is not natural."
(Sheboygan Press [Wisconsin], Oct. 10, 1999.)

"What it comes down to, I believe, is that they're scared. They know our potential, even if most of us don't. They know the threat we pose to their bullshit way of life. ... You've heard it before, and I'm not afraid of proclaiming it: Let's hit them where it hurts the most. Figure it out. Be secure. Be tribal. Go for the jugular."
(In a letter to Earth First Journal, 1994; reproduced by the Ecoterror Response Network, www.cdfe.org/indict.html. "They" he defines as "those who are, quite simply, wrong about what life is all about.")

See also:

David Barbarash : Profile of ALF's New Spokesman Also available in PDF format. FCUSA press release, Oct. 13, 1999.

Animal Activist Denies Charges : ALF Spokesman David Barbarash Says Officials Are Trying to Discredit Him From the Sheboygan Press, Oct. 10, 1999; reproduced with permission.

"Regardless of what anyone thinks, everybody knew why that fire happened and six months later the lynx got listed. If that's what it takes to get species preserved, I hope a lot more of them take place."
(On the 1998 arson at Vail ski resort, quoted in "Eco-terror act at Vail unsolved 5 years later," Daily Camera (Boulder, CO), Oct. 19, 2003. "In Case of Fire, Let It Burn" by Rod Coronado, Earth First! Journal, vol. 23, no. 6, Sept. 1, 2003.)

"I love fire, be it around a campfire with friends or when consuming an empty fur farm, animal laboratory or luxury condominum built on the homes of my animal relations."
(In "In Case of Fire, Let It Burn" by Rod Coronado, Earth First! Journal, vol. 23, no. 6, Sept. 1, 2003.)

"I wish I didn't have to stand up here and talk about and justify and encourage direct action - encourage breaking the law, encourage burning down buildings that are built for life's destruction - but I do."
(6th National Conference on Organized Resistance, Washington, D.C., Jan. 24-26, 2003.)

"You know, those people - I think they should appreciate that we're only targeting their property. Because frankly I think it's time to start targeting them."
(Speaking of corporations that fear for the safety of employees in the wake of ALF attacks, 6th National Conference on Organized Resistance, Washington, D.C., Jan. 24-26, 2003.)

"Every time a police agency pepper-sprays or uses pain-compliance holds against our people, their cars should burn."
(Speaking of corporations that fear for the safety of employees in the wake of ALF attacks, 6th National Conference on Organized Resistance, Washington, D.C., Jan. 24-26, 2003.)

"As long as we emptied the labs of animals, they were still easily replaced. So that's when the ALF in this country, and my cell, started engaging in arson."
(Videotaped at a New Jersey rally by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty [SHAC] aimed at shutting down Huntingdon Life Sciences, Dec. 1, 2002.)

"There isn't a hierarchy of life, but one in which all life is equal."
(Quoted in Guerrillas say they fight to help liberate animals. FBI considers group's members domestic terrorists, by Doug Swanson, Dallas Morning News, Feb. 15, 1998.)

Daley, Tim
ALF (UK) spokesman

"In a war you have to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action by petrol bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps. It's a war, and there's no other way you can stop vivisectors.''
(Interview with the BBC, 1987, quoted in a report to the U.S. Congress, August 1993.)

Fedor, Katie
Spokeswoman until 1999, North American ALF Press Office

"It's a war. It's a nonviolent war. It's a nonviolent revolution. Unfortunately, the traditional routes to societal change such as lobbying haven't worked. Constituents are not being heard. We are forced to take nonviolent action.''
(Associated Press [dateline: Denver] Oct. 23, 1998; following a $12 million arson attack at Vail, Colorado.)

Lee, Ronnie
ALF founder and spokesman (retired)

"This serves Brian Cass right and is totally justifiable. In fact he has got off lightly. I have no sympathy for him. I do not condemn this act. I condemn what Brian Cass does to animals. In fact, I would say that I condone this. What surprises me is that this doesn't happen more often."
(On an attack against Brian Cass, managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, by masked thugs carrying pickaxe handles; Cass sustained a 3-inch gash to the scalp. At the time the attack took place, Lee claimed to have left ALF. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 24, 2001.)

"[I]t seems to me perfectly natural and a very moral thing for people to intervene directly to save animals from persecution. Of course, this would often mean breaking the law, but those laws have been made by a selfish and arrogant human species without taking the interests of animals into consideration."
(New Times, March 1987)

"In an article signed R.L. in the October 1984 ALF newsletter, he [Lee] proposed activists should set up 'fresh groups ... under new names whose policies do not preclude the use of violence towards animals abusers'."
(From "A Personal Overview of Direct Action in the United Kingdom and the United States,” by Kim Stallwood, in Terrorists or freedom fighters? Reflections on the liberation of animals, by Steven Best and Anthony Nocella [eds.], 2004.)

"We decided that our campaign should be against property and that no violence should be used against people, except in self-defense. For some of us, this was for moral reasons, but for others it was purely tactical. I personally now regret this, as I feel there would have been a place for the limited use of violence against animal abusers."
(In "Direct action history lessons: The formation of the Band of Mercy and A.L.F.", by Ronnie Lee, No Compromise, issue 28.)

"If attracting attention is part of the intent of an action ... then how better than in flames?"
(Quoted in ALF extremist stands by call to flames. The animal rights convict who believes arson is the answer, The Guardian (UK), June 25, 2005.)

"Animal liberation is not a campaign. It is not a struggle. It is a war! It is an all-out bloody war!"
(Videotaped at a New Jersey rally by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty [SHAC] aimed at shutting down Huntingdon Life Sciences, Dec. 1, 2002.)

"We'll sweep the police aside. We'll sweep the government aside. We'll sweep Huntingdon Life Sciences aside, and we'll raze this evil place right to the ground."
(Videotaped at a New Jersey rally by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty [SHAC] aimed at shutting down Huntingdon Life Sciences, Dec. 1, 2002.)

"Although fish and chip shops haven't been targeted before so far as I can remember, they would be considered legitimate targets."
(Quoted in "Animal protesters may target fish shops", The Independent, Jan. 12, 2001.)

"For the sake of clarity, let us be uncomfortably honest: to snitch is to take a life. By words and by weapons, each day lives are taken in the most egregious of crimes. When this happens in the courtroom, we call it 'cooperation'. I call it violence, and I call anything done to keep an informant out of the courtroom 'self defense'."
(Quoted in 2008 Year-End Report on Animal Liberation Activities in North America, by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, 2009.)

Various

"A member of the militant Animal Liberation Front, dressed in shorts and T-shirt, drew the largest round of applause when he said: "What we need is more people who are prepared to put on balaclavas and go out in the middle of the night and take real action, because this is what has raised our profile, that is why we are getting the media attention.

"There are 20 or so people who carry the direct action movement in this country and most of them are here now. But the police know who we are and watch us - this isn't a problem, I've been to prison, I've still got the bottle. But there are people here who I don't know and who I'm sure the police don't know who could do what they want - get away with murder."
(Unnamed ALF speaker addressing the International Animal Rights Conference, Tonbridge, Kent, England, Sept. 3-5, 2004; quoted in "Animal rights activists hit training camp to sharpen up battle plans," The Guardian, Sept. 6, 2004.)

"If you feel threatened you must deliver short punches in key areas. Forget the shoulders and legs, aim for the eyes, nose, neck and kidneys. Start with the eyes and deliver short jabs, or you can perform an eye gouge."
(Unnamed self-defense trainer at the International Animal Rights Conference, Tonbridge, Kent, England, Sept. 3-5, 2004; quoted in "In camp with the animal rights zealots," Daily Telegraph, Sept. 6, 2004.)

"Fire is a tool. Nothing does the amount of damage that fire can. Arson works. Make sure that all buildings or vehicles are free of creatures before lighting one single match. Arson should only be used when it can be guaranteed that the fire will not spread to the sheds the animals are in."
(In the ALF publication The Final Nail, under section entitled "Smashing the Furriers")

"We are capable of dealing with anyone. No one has died yet but that time will come."
(Keith Mann, as quoted in the Evening Standard [London, Dec. 8, 1998). Mann was sentenced in 1994 to 14 years in prison for leading a gang which, in 1991, attacked almost 700 businesses in Manchester, UK.)

"I would be overjoyed when the first scientist is killed by a liberation activist."
(Spokeswoman Viven Smith, USA Today, Sept. 3, 1991)

"The $10,000 microscope was destroyed in about 10 seconds with a steel wrecking bar we purchased ... for less than $5. We consider that a pretty good return on our investment.
(ALF memo about the destruction of a laboratory at the University of Oregon, October 1986)

Back to In Their Own Words Index / Home

© 1998-2009 Fur Commission USA