Anti-fur demo Cologne
1 October 2005
Campaigners from Manchester joined anti-fur campaigners from around the rest of the UK to travel to Cologne, Germany, to take part in their large annual anti-fur day of action.
The day started with stalls in one of the central squares in the city and the march began with speeches from German activities. People from all over Germany and further afield set off marching around the city chanting anti-fur slogans throughout, making it aurally as well as visually effective!
The march stopped at fur shops throughout; these, incidentally,were all closed! Presumably they knew they wouldn't get much trade when people would be exposing the fur trade for the barbaric atrocity it is! There were a few scuffles along the way and at one point the police tried to arrest one young woman, but the crowd gathered around her to prevent this.
The march culminated in a gathering at Peek & Cloppenburg, a large department chain store, who are the national focus of anti-fur activity at the moment. Amusingly, P&C appeared to have put on a live band outside in a futile attempt to drown out the chants. They turned their PA system up as loud as it would go but this did nothing to cease the determined crowd of activists - the anti-fur chants were still heard by the passing public and their stunt only served to deter people going into P&C.
At the end of the march, people gathered in the square again where the police tried to grab people to arrest them. After much pushing and shoving and police assaults on protesters, 2 people were arrested. They were both later released without charge.
After a short break the aciton moved to a nearby mink farm. Speeches were held in the town square and the march to the farm commenced afterwards. Everyone held burning torches which made the march exceptionally visually impactive.
The surrounding village had been leafleted the week prior and many local people joined the protest, disgusted that this vile trade goes on in their community. When the march reached the farm, police were pretty much surrounding it and the family from the farm were sitting out in the garden. They stayed for a while but soon appeared to no longer take the shouts of compassion asking them to justify their horendously murderous business.
The demo stayed at the farm until 10pm when everyone left, postive in the days' events, having spread the nanti-fur message far and wide!!
Thinking all the fun was over, the UK contingency made it back, but on arriving into the UK, the whole van was stopped and searched and the passengers detained and questioned for almost 5 hours under terrorist legislation. So much for living in a free country.
Manchester Animal Protection
If not you, who?
If not now, when?
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