Animal Liberation Workshop in Maribor, Slovenia
Since 2007 this is the 2nd Austrian organised Animal Liberation Workshop to be held in neighbouring Slovenia to assist the growth of the animal rights movement there.
The Animal Liberation Workshops which have taken place in Austria since 2005 have also enjoyed international popularity since 2007. ALWs took place this year in Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Finland. The police special commission see this as international networking on the part of the supposed animal protection criminal organisation, an absurdly ridiculous notion. To see criminal dealings every where in the movement is either a deliberate attempt to persecute the movement or it can only be explained by a neurosis.
But neither the Slovenian organisator, the animal rights group Za Zivali! nor the speakers from Austria were put off and this year saw another ALW in Maribor. It took place on 13th and 14th June at the Pekarna Cultural Centre where a kitchen was also offered to provide vegan food for those attending.
Thirty participants from Slovenia and Croatia listened to the talks covering a variety of topics. To begin with, as is the tradition, there was an introduction to animal rights philosophy, then Slovenian campaigners showed images of their actions and the reaction from the public and the animal advocacy group Za Zivali! presented their work. Then Austria showed films and photos of Austrian actions. Due to the wonderful weather, the general discussion about the relationship between animal protection and animal rights took place in the near by park. Late in the evening there was a talk about the successful campaign against battery cages in Austria. The planned film evening did not take place becuase it simply got too late.
This year, unfortunately, there was no demo through the city. So the workshops remained, in a sense, theoretical.
On Sunday morning there was a talk and discussion on the state terror against animal advocacy in Austria. For activists outside of Austria what is going on there is almost inconceivable. People in Maribor held a rally on 10th June outside the Austrian consulate as part of the international day of protest against Austrian repression.
Then there was a presentation about the Animal Protection in Schools project. A training course to become a animal protection teacher takes place each year in July in Graz, Austria. This year the course will also be offered in English. After this a representative from Future Food gave a talk about the facts and myths surrounding vegan nutrition and explained the newest developments in tissue engineering whereby meat is produced in the petri dish using animal cells. A sudent from Vienna introduced the participants to the student animal rights group SAVE which aims to establish the topic of animal rights in all Austrian universities.
Slovenian activists thought that starting a campaign to end battery egg farming and the selling of battery eggs would be feasible. More and more countries are taking on this campaign goal and achieving success with it.
A Viennese activist described how a projector and projector screen can be used to make very effective events for showing animal rights films in public places. In Croatia activists also hold these info-screening events on the streets on Zargreb.
Further topics presented were the EU wide campaign against the EU Commission's attempt to topple the Austrian ban on wild animals in circuses and the so called Hiasl Case which is an attempt to secure person status for a chimpanzee.
Because campaigners from both Slovenia and Croatia were attending, it was possible to discuss effective campaigning cross-nationally.
ALWs are planned for Croatia and Bosnia in the coming months.