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Campaigning nurse Cynthia O'Neill claimed she would rather go to prison than pay court costs after being found guilty of bombarding a cancer charity helpline with nuisance calls.

The animal rights activist denied making persistent calls to the Tenovus charity in Cardiff to protest about the use of animals in cancer research, but was found guilty by Banbury magistrates last week.

She was given a six-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay 100 pounds sterling costs.

Cancer support nurse Gillian Donovan told the court she took hundreds of nuisance calls from Ms O'Neill and became upset that people were being denied access to the line.

(U.K. Nursing Times 22.9.93)

Animal rights activist forced to sell badges

Campaigning nurse Cynthia O'Neill is to sell her nursing badge collection to pay off court costs imposed after she made nuisance calls to a cancer helpline.

The collection includes her SRN badge and Queen's Nursing Institute badge with medal. She has been offered 100 pounds sterling for the collection of nine badges by a nurse collector. Ms O'Neill is an animal rights activist.

'I always said I would go to prison rather than pay the court the 100 pounds sterling,'
'I do not want to sell the badges but I have no option. Animals are dying.'

Ms O'Neill was prosecuted last month after she blocked a helpline run by the Tenovus charity in Cardiff. Nurses who ran the line said they received numerous calls from Ms O'Neill who alleged links between the charity and vivisection. Patients could not get through.

(U.K. Nursing Times 12.10.93)

Ruth Pawelzik is the author of a thought-provoking booklet "I Shout With My Eyes", which is

"written from the viewpoint of a dog in an animal experimental laboratory, how he experiences vivisection, and how the experiencing soul of his dog-species, which lives in him, perceives mankind".

Ruth has an impressive history of involvement with anti-vivisection organisations in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Australia where she now lives. About her generous and remarkable services to NZAVS she writes:

"Please do not thank me, I have spent my entire life opposing the hideous, hidden suffering of the abandoned and the forlorn. I worked in an honorary capacity for 16 years for Albert Schweitzer. When I took over the membership list it was 4,700 donor members and after 16 years when I handed it back to younger helpers it had increased to 24,400 donor-members. In addition I sent within two and a half years 243 tons of food, clothing and medicine to the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambarene, Africa."

The voluntary soliciting for sales of ARTL (at her own expense) is a further laudable undertaking by Ruth Pawelzik. To this end she is canvassing bookshops over the entire Australian continent. When offered financial recompense from our Society for the considerable sum involved in photocopying letters, order-forms, postage costs, envelopes etc, her response was:

"It is not so difficult to renounce what was once considered important - it is much harder to live abandoned in a laboratory."

Isla Dight, knowledgeable and renowned abolitionist, also of Australia, immediately ARTL was launched set about soliciting its purchase by public libraries across the Tasman. Isla, an active supporter of NZAVS since our Society's inception in 1978 has steadfastly upheld with great effort our various campaigns, petitions and struggles with the New Zealand Government. (See page 275 of ARTL) . Through her laudable undertakings several of the Australian animalistic societies are reviewing ARTL and generating interest in the book.

Virginia Trendall, former columnist and for many years hard-working editor of the informative news-sheet Fur 'n Feathers, California (mentioned elsewhere in this Mobilise!) has made exhaustive and laudable undertakings to get ARTL out to the American public.

Bina Robinson's well-constructed review in The Civil Abolitionist Autumn 1993 generated a trickling of sales from USA, the extra work being a labour of love as cheques and receipts must be converted from US to NZ currency and paperwork and banking processes became more time consuming. We are hoping that Bina's write-up will act as a catalyst for ARTL across the USA. A key figure in the anti-vivisection movement for more years than NZAVS has existed, Bina is well-known on the international scene for her outstanding newsletter and its valuable contribution to the new movement of scientific anti-vivisection.

Thus - in their laudable undertakings to end vivisection many people are linked around the world.