Josh Harper of the SHAC 7 on the revolutionary spark that keeps the coldness away

Josh Harper is one of the SHAC 7 activists convicted under “animal enterprise terrorism” charges for campaigning to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences, a notoriously cruel animal testing lab located in the United States and the United Kingdom. In this episode, we bring you a powerful interview with Josh, which we conducted at the Resistance Ecology Conference at Portland State University.

In this landmark First Amendment case, activists were convicted as “terrorists” for various activities such as running a controversial website on which they posted news about the campaign, including legal and illegal actions like stealing animals from labs; supporting such actions as “black faxing”; giving public talks about their personal beliefs; and associating with other members of the SHAC 7. The defendants lost at the trial level, and were sentenced to between one and six years in prison.

Josh spent 3 years in federal prison. He was convicted of violations of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (later called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act), and a telecommunications conspiracy charge for giving public speeches and merely speaking about (not utilizing) tactics like black faxing.

This is the first of two interviews with members of the SHAC 7. Our next interview is with Jake Conroy.

We also return to the topic of the illegal ivory trade, and highlight a unique approach to getting rid of ivory stockpiles, which are only fueling more wildlife crime that is driving African Elephants to extinction. And, we discuss several new and important films and documentaries that are keeping animal issues in the forefront of the public’s mind, including Blackfish, a new documentary film released to theaters that details the dark side of keeping killer whales in captivity.

And, of course, we highlight other News from the Vegan Frontier, let you know about vegan related happenings in and around Central Oregon, and more!

All Things Vegan airs on KPOV, Bend Community Radio.

Listen to the July 23, 2013 show. For complete show notes, see All Things Vegan Radio.