"How far do things have to go before you can speak of terrorism?"—Daniel Vasella, MD
Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella, MD, is the target of the moment.Last week Dr. Vasella's vacation home in Austria was destroyed in a gasoline-fueled blaze that took 100 firefighters to extinguish. This followed July attacks in which his mother's ashes and burial urn were stolen and his dead 19-year-old sister's grave was desecrated with slogans related to Huntingdon LifeSciences (HLS), a contract animal testing company that is anathema to animal rights extremists.
In addition, crosses bearing Dr. Vasella's name and that of his wife were placed in a Chur cemetery.
In the wake of attacks on himself, his family, and his employees that have been met with a notably tame police response, Dr. Vasella pointedly asked, "How far do things have to go before you can speak of terrorism?"
In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Sonntags Blick, Dr. Vasella said, "For me, it is terrorism to propagate fear, to put targeted people under pressure with all possible and in particular illegal methods."
Although grave robbing is not a standard tactic in animal rights protests in the US, it seems to be catching on on the other side of the Atlantic. In 2004 the Animal Rights Militia (ARM) claimed responsibility for stealing the body of the mother-in-law of a Briton who bred lab animals for HLS.
The arson and grave robbing directed at Dr. Vasella follow several years of steadily escalating attacks on Novartis employees.
Austrian authorities said that the style of the attacks resembles others by the extremist group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), which has set fire to Novartis company cars and burned down a sports center in France. A SHAC spokeswoman denied responsibility for the recent attacks but said SHAC is willing to meet with Novartis to discuss the issue.
The events preceding the latest attacks on Dr. Vasella include extremists' setting fire to a company-owned tennis club near Novartis's Basel headquarters, smashing employees' car windows in Switzerland and Germany, and putting crude incendiary devices under the tires of German employees' cars.
This last act represented a notable escalation because the homemade bombs were set while vehicles were parked at the Novartis employees' homes. The Wall Street Journal reports that so far, none of the devices have actually exploded, and no one has been hurt.
Novartis sources say that “telltale slogans” left at the site of the vacation home fire resemble other actions by SHAC. They also note that a “fire accelerator” was used to cause the fire to spread.
In 2005 a guinea pig farm in Britain closed after violent animal rights extremists attacked the facility and looted the owner's grandmother's remains from her grave.
Earlier this year a church in the Swiss village where Dr. Vasella lives was defaced with the spray-painted words “Death to Vasella”.
A group calling itself “MFAH Austria” claimed responsibility for the attacks and threatened more unless Novartis breaks ties with Huntingdon Life Sciences Group PLC.
The perpetrators are a bit behind the times, however. A Novartis spokesman said that the company has not worked with HLS for “many years”.
Swiss federal police say that animal rights violence is becoming more common and accounted for one-sixth of their cases of violent extremism in 2007, the most recent year for which they have released data.