Veganism has been described as the fastest growing lifestyle movement. For some concern about animal welfare leads them to actively campaign against all forms of the meat industry. But are some of those activists taking it too far?
“When you’re being called murderers and rapists, that is overstepping the mark, for fairly obvious reasons,” says Alison Waugh, a trainee farmer in Northumberland.
She has received death threats due to her work and told the Victoria Derbyshire programme other farmers are feeling threatened.
“Which is quite ironic from people that want peace for animals, but then they tell you, ‘I hope you and your family go die in a hole for what you do,'” she says.
“You’ve got people storming the meat mart, spraying graffiti…that’s when it’s not OK, when you’ve got people worrying if their cows are going to be safe tonight.”
One activist group is called the Save Movement, which says it has a non-violent approach to campaigning. It has 42 groups in the UK and 100 worldwide.
Its activists hold vigils outside abattoirs and aim to turn the world vegan by sharing images on social media of the animals’ treatment.
Lead activist and Instagram star Joey Carbstron and his team wait for hours until trucks of animals are on the move in order to, as they put it, “bear witness” to what the creatures experience.
“These days we have tech like iPhones, we can bring their faces out to the public and say, ‘This is where your food comes from’. We get people to connect with the animals,” he says.
There have also been cases of activists standing in the meat aisles of supermarkets with graphic images and noises of animals being slaughtered.
During filming for this programme, they saw an opportunity to take their protest a step further.
At a slaughterhouse in Liverpool, some activists decided to trespass on the property when the pigs were not brought through the front entrance.
Police were called and escorted them off the property, following a tense argument between protestors and workers.
The footage was spread across the Save Movement Facebook and Instagram accounts. It had 17,000 views on Joey’s YouTube and 4,500 shares.
