Peter Young, the first activist convicted under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, was released from prison Thursday morning. I’ll post more information as I get it, but I wanted to highlight it for a couple reasons:
*The Animal Enterprise Protection Act is the precursor to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act: corporations and corporate politicians said they needed the new law because the original wasn’t working. They conveniently ignore cases like Peter Young, who was charged with releasing mink from fur farms (ostensibly the type of action the law was meant to target). They also ignore the case of the SHAC 7 (the only other conviction under the law) who weren’t charged with doing anything like that: they ran a website.
*Peter Young was released after two years in prison. Meanwhile, the SHAC 7 are now sitting in prison, sentenced between one and six years each (most in the middle) for simply supporting illegal activists like Peter Young. What kind of message does this send to the “eco-terrorists” that these corporations and politicians are targeting? When underground activists are heralded as heroes (there is now a benefit CD called “Prisoner of War” for Young, with big name bands like Goldfinger and Propagandhi) and legal activists are sent to prison with stiffer sentences, is this really supposed to deter illegal activity?