Brave Journalism At The Guardian

It's easy to knock the Guardian, purveyors of radical ideas such as 'Never Trust A Christian Cowboy', ideas which would otherwise never be heard in the mainstream media. Its pages are full of people who think it's brave to attack the war in Iraq or condemn people who take the Bible seriously.

But Catherine Bennett on 'animal rights activists' is a truly brave article. Because if the activists - who she rightly calls terrorists - run true to form she may well be in physical danger as a result of what she's written. The people whe writes about are seriously nasty.

In most English towns you'll see a young person on a weekend with a stall in the High Street, Stop Huntingdon leaflets and a petition against foxhunting. The other face of the movement you can read about here, or here, or on their own websites. If an entire community was - and still is - terrorised by racists or homophobes because it contained one black or gay resident, it would never be off the news. Yet what's happening at Newchurch in Staffordshire is remarkably low profile, and it's only one of many similar campaigns.

WAITE
Horrendous it may be but it's by no means unique. Other targets in the community here include the local golf club where John Hall used the gym. When threatening letters were ignored turf on its greens was dug up and red paint poured over the fairways. Mr Hall chose to resign. His newsagent was targeted and no longer delivers the papers. His solicitor bowed to pressure and no longer acts for the family. The glazier, who repaired the farm's vandalised windows, was threatened and withdrew his labour, so did the local vet. And the Halls have been stopped from visiting the nearby hotel when it too received warnings. Indeed the entire community here received letters of abuse and accusation about the Halls and their alleged cruelty to animals, including the village pub, the Red Lion, where landlords, the Marklews, tried at first to resist the pressure.

MRS MARKLEW
We had a letter to say that the Hall family have been using the Red Lion and that we'd got to stop them coming in, which we ignored it. So then we got intimidating letters and threats, what they were going to do - they were going to burn the place down, they were going to trash the cars, they were going to smash the windows. Then after that they sent letters to everybody in the village telling them not to use the Red Lion because we're serving scum - i.e. John and his family.

MARKLEW
And that's when the bricks started coming through the window. The phone calls was horrendous, you'd get them 24 hours a day non-stop and every time you picked the receiver up, because you had to because I was running a business, you got silence or abuse.

WAITE
But the Marklews stood their ground and point blank refused to bar the Halls. However, when senior management at the Union Pub Company, which owns the Red Lion, also became the target of hundreds of hostile letters, phone calls and e-mails, officials met the Marklews and told the couple that it would be best if they left their tenancy.

Bennett's view of this is

"Perhaps, in the context of al-Qaida's massacres, the blowing up of Israeli buses, and the slaughter and abuse of children which Tony Blair has described as "extreme terrorism", milder terms seem more appropriate for our domestic product. But if terrorism must now be identified with acts so unspeakable they seem to render the word, by itself, inadequate, this should not prevent our home-grown, less extreme specialists in fear from being known for what they are."

I'm reminded by her bravery of the famous 1960s Private Eye article which named the Kray Twins as the people behind a series of tabloid headlines about the 'reign of fear' in London's gangland. They closed the item with a statement to the effect that 'if the Krays live up to their reputation, this may well be the last issue of Private Eye under the present management'.