Monday, April 24, 2006

WAR kicks off World Week at Vertical and 2 Bank of America locations

Activists with New York based Win Animal Rights kicked off World Week by spending the afternoon in front of the main doors to the Vertical Group's office building at 417 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Although most of the afternoon was spent flyering the neighborhood and educating other building tenants, the afternoon would not have been complete without raising our voices so that the folks from Vertical could hear us up on the 6 th floor.

Several office workers, who stopped at our literature today, expressed concern that one of their neighbors could be continuing to trade shares in LSRI (Huntingdon Life Sciences). Most stayed long enough to witness the horrific images of cruelty and savagery revealed by undercover investigators working at HLS which were screened at our table, on our portable DVD player.

As long as the Vertical Group continues to make a market for the death shares of LSRI, we will continue our efforts to show them how unethical their business is. “The blood of 500 innocent animals is on your hands Vertical Group…..We will be back!”

Next stop was Bank of America's flagship branch on Madison Avenue in posh, midtown Manhattan. Bank of America, through it's investment subsidiary Columbia Management, continues to hold a $3 million investment in LSRI (HLS). The loud chanting, gory posters, and bloody graphic banner drew the attention of both building residents and passersby. WAR's new Bank of America/Columbia Management flyer was widely distributed.

After building security found out from their phone call to the local police precinct that there wasn't much they could do to stop a peaceful, legal protest, they decided to lock down the revolving doors and the side doors as well. To say the least, it was amusing to watch Bank of America customers scurry from one locked door to the next.

When traffic slowed down at that location our group moved to 44 th Street, where we gave them another loud and impassioned protest. Security personnel growled and mumbled under their breath as they realized that if they locked these doors too, we would just find the next set of open doors to deliver our message. “Bank of America, do the right thing, dump your shares in Huntingdon Death Sciences”……”We'll be back Bank of America, until they stop the killing, we'll keep coming back”.