9 Vegan Activists Arrested After Waitrose Animal Rights Protest

The campaigners said they targeted the supermarket because it 'uses humane-washing messaging in order to sell its animal products'
Publish date:
Vegan activist is arrested in Brighton

Police arrest one of the animal rights activists (Photo: DxE)

Nine vegan activists have been arrested following a protest in a major UK supermarket.

The campaigners took to Waitrose on Western Road in Brighton in a bid to 'challenge the store profiting from animal products'.

Around 40 protestors from the Brighton chapter of international animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) entered the shop, before lining up in front of the dairy, fish, and meat aisles holding signs saying 'Meat Is Murder' and 'Are You a Breastfeeding Adult?'.

'Humane washing'

"We are targeting Waitrose because they use humane-washing messaging in order to sell animal products. Treating animals nicely does not justify killing them and using their bodies for your own gain. They are individuals," a DxE spokesperson said in a statement sent to Plant Based News.

"We live by an assumption of human superiority. The assumption that because we are human, we can take someone's life who does not want to die, simply because they are not human.

"This is describing 'speciesism', a newly identified social inequality concerning animals that has been largely equated with other forms of discrimination such as racism and sexism."

Vegan activists protest in Brighton

The activists held signs (Photo: DxE)

Nine arrested

"Sussex Police have arrested nine people following protests across Brighton," Sussex Police said.

"Officers attended Waitrose, in Western Road, to reports of a large group people being involved in an animal rights protest just before 5pm on Saturday.

"Police provided an immediate response which resulted in nine members of the group being arrested for failing to provide their names or addresses. All nine remain in custody and the investigation remains ongoing."