The Swedish Picture: direct action, fur farms, veganism and the ALF

We speak to a local activist on Sweden's particular successful actions on behalf of liberating Swedish animals. Here's what he had to say.

Abolitionist: What is Sweden like for animals rights generally Daniel?

Daniel: It is said that Sweden has the best animal protection law in the world. In it it says that animals kept for food or fur should be kept in a way that benefits their natural behaviour and their health. Well, that says it all, doesn't it? I guess it depends on the interpretation but in my opinion that would mean there would exist no battery farms, there would exist no fur farms, there would exist no factory farms but unfortunately in Sweden today these things still exist. Right now there is basically one national animal rights organisation, Animal Rights Sweden , with around 35,000 members. They work on most issues regarding animal abuse. Most grassroot activists do not work with them though, as they are tired of them condemning local animal rights groups and direct action groups such as the ALF. Most grassroots activists in Sweden are involved in local groups or national campaigns run by grassroot activists. Last year a network called "Sweden's Animal Rights Activists" was formed and holds about 2 national gatherings a year where they share experiences and ideas. There has always been a very strong direct action movement in the animal rights movement in Sweden and it's one of the reasons why there has been many successes over recent years. 

On a summer night in 1985, a small group of people broke into the Malmo Dental School and liberated two beagles from vivisection and it was the first raid of its kind. This marked the birth of the Swedish ALF – Djurens Befrielsefront (DBF).

The police were really confused after the raid and were really sure it was people from the UK that had carried out the raid, but more were soon to come. It was not the first time that Swedish animal lovers has taken the law into their own hands. In 1975, an animal caretaker at a hospital vivisection lab in Gothenburg one day left work with two German Shepherd he had rescued and he never went back to work after that day. It went to trial, and it was offered that charges would be dropped if he gave the whereabouts of the dogs, but he refused and was sentenced to fines. There had been two raids in the late 70´s and the early 80´s as well. In the first - an early morning raid on an old mink farm that now breeds cats for vivisection in the same cages. A group of elderly women liberated over 40 cats before being spotted by the owner; the ensuing fight ended with him in a hospital with a broken nose. In the second raid, cats were liberated from a laboratory in Stockholm.

But the raid in 1985 was the start of something new. This group was reminiscent of the ALF but with some differences.  

The Swedish ALF did not use arson as a tactic and seemed to focus on liberating animals, especially from labs or animals that have failed to be rescued from within the law. Most of the people involved in the ALF during the 80´s were middle-aged women, many of them were even meateaters, and very law-abiding. Between 1985-1991 many laboratories, breeders and battery hen farms were raided resulting in the liberations of hundreds of dogs, cats, mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, chinchillas, hens and sheep.  

Abolitionist: What about Swedish veganism?

Daniel: Before the mid-nineties almost no one knew what a vegan was even though there has been a Vegan Society in Sweden since the 1980's.

In 1994 two meat transport lorries belonging to Scan, Swedens biggest meat company, were burned out in the first act of arson against any animal abuse ever in Sweden. A new group, calling themselves Animal Action group, claimed responsibility and announced that the protest was a declaration of war against the industry. They weren't kidding. The same year, they set fire to a butcher shop and 3 more Scan meat lorries were burnt out in another town, in Umea, in the north of Sweden, a town where straight edge and the hardcore music scene grow strong and where music bands such as Refused were created. This is where half of the students in all schools soon became vegan.

There were also discussions on almost a daily basis in the media and the number of vegans grew very quickly. More and more supermarkets started to take in vegan products something that could only be brought previously only in health food stores.  

Today most supermarkets have their own brands of soya milk and most of them sell vegan butter, soya cream, yoghurts,tofu, fake-meat and so on. And Sweden is famous for the Swedish glace and delicious mocca-balls!  

Abolitionist: Tell us all you know on fur farming in Sweden.

Daniel: Fur farming used to be a big industry. It's still a big industry, in Sweden but not as big as in the other Scandinavian countries such as Finland and Denmark. In Sweden there is around 140 mink farms left, and a handful of chinchilla farms. Every year 1.4 million minks and a few thousands chinchillas are killed for their fur on Swedish fur farms. The reason why there is not more farms around in Sweden is because of a hard-hitting campaign by all existing animal rights groups. Especially during the 80´s and 90´s, there was huge campaign to educate the public about animals on fur farms and how they are kept, which gave results as less people brought fur.

In February 1997 a new group called "De Vilda Minkarna" (the Wild Minks) emerged. They burnt down a building and in a press release claiming responsibility and announced the commencement of a war against the fur trade. Since then, over 100 raids, has taken place on Swedish fur farms in which minks have been released, breeding cards stolen, foxes coloured with non-toxic henna colour and chinchillas being rescued and rehomed and farm building and vehicles smashed or burned.

At the same time, activists all over Sweden smashed the windows on fur shops, threw red paint over them and superglued their locks. That is one of the main reasons why so many fur farm closed down in a short period of time in Sweden.

Many fox farms closed down in the early 90´s already, but there were a few, around 15 of them, that desperately tried to survive the 90´s. Many of them were raided by The Wild Minks or the ALF that coloured their furs with non-toxic henna colour to make their fur worthless to the farmers. Breeding cards were stolen or mixed and the fur farmers breeding systems were ruined. Another farm with 1500 foxes had to close down after activists filmed the horrible conditions on the farm and turned the evidence over to local authorities.

New regulations concerning fox farming was imposed in 2000, saying that all foxes on fur farms must have the possibility to dig and they had to be kept on the ground, not on wire nets.

By that time there was less than 5 fox farms still operating in Sweden that all had to close down as a result of the new regulations.

Groups like the DBF and DVM entered the new millennium with infrequent but strategically well-planned raids. Many of these focused on issues which the animal rights movement has a fair chance of winning. In the early 2000 there was almost 20 chinchilla fur farms around - today there are 4.The reason for this is a strategic campaign of direct action by animal rights activists against an industry that was already weak and losing. Three chinchilla farms were totally emptied of chinchillas that were rehomed and the farms then smashed up and closed down as a result. Another chinchilla farmer had his house and cars smashed up and painted five times in 6 months and 2 chinchilla farmers stopped farming because they feared they would be next.

On June 14th the Swedish government were supposed to vote on a new proposal. The proposal was going to grant farmed mink higher standards, such as ample room to exercise natural hunting behaviour, having access to swimming water and being kept alone, rather than crammed together with other minks during parts of the year.

But the French government has launched a formal complaint to the EU Commission regarding the Swedish government's proposal to raise welfare standards for farmed mink.

This sudden move from France means that the Parliament will have to postpone it's vote for three months while the EU Commission examines if the Swedish law is in violation of the union's legislative agreements.

What we can see is how strong the fur industry and the agricultural lobby are and they have worked out this plan together trying to stop the new Swedish legislation that would make mink farming in Sweden impossible.  

The Swedish proposal has nothing to do with free trade agreements or the basic four freedoms of the EU. Rather it states basic demands for finally fulfilling the existing Swedish animal welfare legislation from 1988 which explicitly demands that all animals kept by humans should be able to exercise their natural behaviour and be protected from unnecessary harm.

On June 14th, a national demo with around 200 people where held outside the Swedish Parliament to show the politicians that there is a strong support for the new legislation and that people have waited long enough - the animals have waited long enough - for this and we want to see results.  

Abolitionist: The Sweden based groups, Animal Rights Alliance, protested to get restaurants to stop selling Foie Gras. How successful were their efforts?

Daniel: This campaign started in February and has been a big success. Lots of restaurants in Stockholm that sold foie gras were contacted with information on how the animals are treated and luckily enough one of the most famous restaurants in Sweden,where the rich and famous go,was disgusted enough by the information they received they stopped serving foie gras.  

This was one of the best things that could happen for the campaign, as it got lots of media attention and several restaurants decided to follow in their lead. We also contacted magazines for people in the restaurant business and made sure they did a good story and interviewed the restaurants that stopped, as it more likely for other restaurants to listen to people in the same business rather than animal rights campaigners.

Our next step was to make sure the restaurants understood that we were not going to be satisfied with just sending them a letter so we started doing demos outside the restaurants that did not stop selling foie gras and that resulted in several following suit for the fear of being targeted and negative national media coverage. In all, over 60 restaurants has stopped serving foie gras under a period of 4 months and we have received enormous positive media coverage.  

Abolitionist: What do the general public think of AR activists esp. since, I assume, many Swedish people must wear fur?

Daniel: Actually there is a lot of support for the ideas of animal rights in Sweden and many people even support direct action.  

There is a majority of the people that want to see fur farms banned, that want to see no battery system for hens, that want to see animal experimentation stopped.

Abolitionist: Has there been a decline in fur wearing over the years due to animal right activists campaigns?

Daniel: Fur is a dirty word in Sweden and most people would never buy or wear a real fur. The problem in Sweden, as in most other countries, is that the fur industry has picked up on this and try their best to get people to wear real fur, without their knowledge. They put fur on shoes, on gloves and all kind of fur trim and many people are so surprised when told it is actually real fur that they are wearing. Another thing the Fur Industry is trying to do is to use more rabbit fur and claim that it is a byproduct of the meat, something which is not true at all since the rabbit bred for fur is not the same as those bred for meat.

Every year there are several fur shops closing down in Sweden and there has not been one that has opened in several years. So the number of fur shops around is going down which is very positive, and all the major clothing companies have agreed not to sell clothes with fur trim.  

Abolitionist: How much vivisection is being conducted in Sweden and how much of it is being challenged?

Daniel: Year 2004 shows that 850,000 animals were used in experiments in Sweden. All experiments on animals that are carried out in Sweden must pass an ethical board. It decides if there is a good reason to carry out the experiments. That said, the majority of the people on the ethical boards are vivisectors themselves or animal technicians working in animal testing laboratories. With some luck one or two people represent animal protection groups or politicians. In 2004 there was 8 233 applications from vivisectors that wanted to carry out experiments on animals. 8102 of them were approved and only 131 was turned down by the ethical board.

Last May, one of Sweden's two remaining primate laboratories, the Torneby Primate Centre, owned by Uppsala University, decided to close down. The reason given for the closure is the cost involved in running the centre has become prohibitively high. The 50 monkeys currently housed at the centre will not be sold to other vivisection labs, but instead will be rehabilitated and assurances have been given that that they will not be used in experiments in the future.

The closure of the centre now leaves only The Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) in Stockholm as the last remaining primate experimental centre in Sweden. SMI are coming under increasing pressure from the Stockholm based group Djurrattsalliansen who have already held several protests against the centre in the last few months and who are currently trying to prevent SMI from expanding.

SMI have applied to an ethical committee on animal experiments for permission to house a further 300 primates – many will be used in HIV experiments.

Since 2003 animal experiments on chimps, gorillas, orangutans and some gibbon monkeys are banned in Sweden and we are now working hard to get the ban to include other primate species as well.