Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) is an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates.

SHAC was started in November 1999 by British animal rights activists Greg Avery, Heather James, and Natasha Dellemagne after video footage shot covertly inside HLS in 1997 by PETA was aired on British television. The footage showed staff shaking, punching, and shouting at beagles in an HLS lab. The employees were dismissed and prosecuted, and HLS's Home Office licence to perform animal experiments was revoked for six months. PETA stopped its protests against HLS after being threatened with legal action, and SHAC took over as a leaderless resistance.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors U.S. domestic extremism, has described SHAC's modus operandi as "frankly terroristic tactics similar to those of anti-abortion extremists." The campaign has used tactics ranging from non-violent protest to the alleged firebombing of houses owned by executives associated with HLS clients and investors, and several SHAC activists have been convicted for their role in the campaign. In May 2005, an official with the FBI's counterterrorism division included SHAC in a list of what he called special-interest extremist movements that he said are the "most serious domestic terrorism threats" in the U.S. In 2009, a number of senior members of SHAC, including Avery, James and Dellemagne, were jailed for between four and eleven years on conspiracy to blackmail charges

SHAC's modus operandi is known as secondary and tertiary targeting. Activists engage in direct action — ranging from lawful protests to intimidation, harassment, and violent attacks — not only against HLS, its employees, and its employees' families, but also against secondary and tertiary targets, such as HLS's business partners, their business partners, insurers, caterers, cleaners, children's nursery schools, and office suppliers.

The Daily Mail cites as examples a SHAC activist sending 500 letters to the neighbours of a company manager who did business with HLS. The letter warned parents to keep their children away from the man — falsely claiming that he had raped the letter writer when she was a child. Police subsequently visited every household in the manager's area to tell his neighbours that the allegations were false. A woman in her 60s who worked for a HLS-related company allegedly had every window in her house smashed twice, both after visits from SHAC supporters during the night, and found an effigy hanging outside her home, which read "R.I.P. Mary, Animal Abusing B*tch".

SHAC say they publish names and addresses only so that people can protest peacefully and within the law. However, testimony to the British House of Commons on March 19, 2003 included excerpts from a document reported to have come from within the SHAC organization. Quotes include:

 

• A simple tactic has been adopted recently. Pick your target. Throw a couple of rape alarms in their roof guttering or thick hedgerow, and leg it....
• Being kept awake at night hardly puts you in a good mood at work or with your family....
• Another idea is to set off extra loud fireworks from a safe distance that will wake up the HLS scum and everybody else for miles around....
• From the comfort of your own home, you can swamp all these bastards with send no money offers. They cause huge inconvenience and can give them a bad credit rating. Order them taxis, pizzas, curries, etc, the possibilities are endless.
• Above all, stay free and safe, and don't get caught. The more preparation you do the better.... Think, think, think. Don't lick stamps, use gloves when pasting stuff.... No idle talk in pubs. Burn your shoes and clothes after your night of action.

A few months later, HLS marketing director Andrew Gay was attacked on his doorstep with a chemical spray to his eyes which left him temporarily blinded. The campaign continues to develop new tactics and targets. SHAC activists have been convicted of burglary, affray, illegal street collection, highway obstruction, public order offences, inciting violence and terror, blackmail, and stalking.

Firebombings

In June 2005, Vancouver-based brokerage Canaccord Capital announced that it had dropped a client, Phytopharm PLC, in response to the May 2005 ALF firebombing of a car belonging to Canaccord executive Michael Kendall. The ALF stated on its website that activists placed an "incendiary device" under the car, which was in Kendall's garage at home when it caught fire during the night. Kendall and his family went into hiding. The brokerage, Canaccord Capital Corp., stated that it was not "worth risking its employees' lives" to do business with a company "targeted by animal rights extremists". Phytopharm was targeted, as were those doing business with it, because it had business links with HLS. The ALF warned Phytopharm to stay away from HLS or "see your share price crash and your supporters' property go up in flames."

A posting on the website Bite Back on September 7, 2005 said that the ALF had carried out an attack on the home of Paul Blackburn, the corporate controller of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in Buckinghamshire, because GSK is a customer of Huntingdon Life Sciences. The activists admitted to detonating a device containing two litres of fuel and four pounds of explosives on the doorstep of Blackburn's home. Blackburn was out of the country at the time, but his wife and child were home, though the bomb caused only minor damage.

Vandalism, intimidation and threats of violence

Carr Securities announced it had withdrawn from making a market in HLS shares after a New York yacht club was covered in red paint by the U.S. branch of the ALF, because members of the club worked for Carr Securities, which traded in HLS shares. The ALF announced on its bulletin board: "Let this be a message to any other company who chooses to court HLS in their ... entrance into the NYSE. If you trade in LSR shares, make a market, process orders, or purchase shares you can expect far worse treatment. The message is simple, don't touch HLS!" On October 26, 2005, Testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works by John Lewis, Deputy Assistant Director Federal Bureau of Investigation Oversight on Eco-terrorism included statements that in September, "Carr Securities began marketing the Huntingdon Life Sciences stock. The next day, the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club, to which certain Carr executives reportedly belong, was vandalized by animal rights activists. The extremists sent a claim of responsibility to the SHAC website, and three days after the incident, Carr terminated its business relationship with HLS. These are just some of the examples of SHAC’s use of threats and violence to financially strangle HLS and permanently mar its public image. These examples demonstrate some of the difficulties law enforcement faces in combating acts of extremism and domestic terrorism. Extremists are very knowledgeable about the letter of the law and the limits of law enforcement. The SHAC website has a page devoted to instructing activists on how to behave toward law enforcement officers, how to deal with interrogations, and what to say — and not say — if they are arrested.

In May 2006, an anonymous group said it would be writing to every one of GlaxoSmithKline's 170,000 small investors warning them to sell their shares, as part of the campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences. The letters began arriving at investors' home addresses on May 7, 2006, asking that shares be sold within 14 days, and that the group should be informed of the sale by e-mail via a hotmail address. It added: "We will be checking that you have done this. The choice is yours." The number of letters sent was much smaller than was claimed, reports suggesting "at least 50" shareholders received the warning. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph the following week, the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed support for animal experimentation in the face of an "appalling...campaign of intimidation."

On March 3, 2006, a federal jury in Trenton, New Jersey convicted six members of SHAC of "terrorism and Internet stalking," according to the New York Times, finding them guilty of using their website to "incite attacks" on those who did business with HLS In September 2006, the so-called "SHAC 7" received jail sentences of 3 to 6 years. Originally, seven individuals were charged, along with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA. The individuals were Kevin Kjonaas (former president of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA), Lauren Gazzola, Jacob Conroy, Joshua Harper, Andrew Stepanian, Darius Fullmer, and John McGee. McGee was later dropped from the case.

The defendants were charged with conspiracy to violate the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, in the first application of the 1992 statute. Kjonaas, Gazzola, Conroy, and Harper were also charged with conspiracy to harass using a telecommunications device (sending black faxes). Kjonaas, Gazzola, Conroy, and SHAC USA were charged with conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and three counts of interstate stalking via the Internet.^{[citation needed]} The case first went to trial in June 2005, but ended in a mistrial when one of the key defense attorneys fell ill during the opening statement. It resumed on February 6, 2006. The defense of the SHAC 7 rested largely on the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that political speech is legal unless it can be shown that a defendant has told specific individuals to commit specific, imminent acts of violence. On March 3, 2006, the defendants were convicted and sentenced to an aggregate of 24 years in prison, and ordered to pay a joint restitution of $1,000,001.00.

Operation Achilles

On 1 May 2007 a campaign called Operation Achilles was enacted against SHAC, a series of raids involving 700 police officers in England, Amsterdam, and Belgium. In total 32 people linked to SHAC were arrested, including Greg and Natasha Avery, who were refused bail. Heather Nicholson was arrested and charged at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court on the 7 May  Greg and Natasha Avery were charged on the 3 May under blackmail charges, described in the Criminal Law Act 1977. Nine other activists were also arrested and were charged with blackmail.

On 30 July 2008 Greg and Natasha Avery entered pleas of guilty to the charge of blackmail, together with a co-accused Dan Amos. They returned to custody to await sentencing on the completion of the October 2008 trial of Trevor Holmes, Gerrah Selby, Daniel Wadham, Gavin Medd-Hall, and Heather Nicholson, who denied the charges. During the trial prosecutors told jurors that a 2007 meeting between the defendants had been bugged by police, and the information acquired revealed that SHAC supported illegal acts that were traced to attacks on people across Britain. The prosecution also alleged that there is evidence of direct email links between SHAC, the Animal Liberation Front and Animal Rights Militia. The trial concluded on 23 December 2008 with Holmes being acquitted but the other four convicted. On 21 January 2009 Justice Butterfield ordered Nicholson to serve eleven years imprisonment, Greg and Natasha to nine years, Medd-Hall to eight years, Wadham to five years and Selby and Amos to four years. Passing sentence he told them, "You are not going to prison for your beliefs, you are not going to prison for expressing your beliefs, you are going to prison because each of you has committed a very serious criminal offence."  He also served ASBOs on all seven, restricting their contact with companies targeted in the campaign.

As a result of the police operation, Der Spiegel writes, the number of attacks on HLS and their business declined drastically but "the movement is by no means dead"  and police estimate that "up to three quarters of the most violent activists" are now jailed. The day after the convictions, The Daily Telegraph reported that new posts on SHAC's website suggest the campaign "appears to be continuing."  Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, a lawyer who has worked for numerous clients targeted by SHAC, warned, "There are just enough out of prison to keep the climate of fear going, [p]eople have good reason to remain worried."