This ruling by the ASA against Viva! campaign leafletting is a total outrage. However, it could backfire totally. One way to ensure that millions more people get to hear about, and read, the leaflet that ASA is trying to censor is to organise a massive defiance campaign. This will get tons of publicity, and render unworkable their efforts (as well as any plans on their part to suppress other public campaigning literature). This is what happened with the McLibel campaign. We ourselves will publicise your campaign to all our contacts around the world.

Meanwhile, as the ASA is so keen to throw its weight around, we await with bated breath their suppression of the unsolicited stream of food industry propaganda which is invading all areas of our lives (including schools) and is contributing to the massive rise in obesity and other junk-food related diseases. After all, McDonald's, one of the biggest culprits, even have a High Court ruling against them for 'exploiting children' with their marketing strategy. But that doesn't seem to bother the official so-called 'regulatory' bodies like the ASA.

All credit then to all the campaigners who are exposing and targetting the companies who care only about exploiting customers, workers, animals and natural resources in order to make profits for themselves.

Dave Morris
McLibel campaign

www.viva.org.uk

Dear Friends,

Following a recent series of complaints against Viva! registered with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) by an Australian Trade Body, the ASA reached decisions which we believe constitute a profoundly serious attack on freedom of speech. It has acted far outside its remit in order to defend commercial interests and its decision could seriously limit the campaigning work undertaken by any animal, environmental or human rights charity or non-profit body.

The case revolves around Viva!’s campaign against the commercial slaughter for export of wild kangaroos and the marketing of their skins and meat by the Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia (KIAA) – but it has implications for everyone.

The ASA ruled that Viva!’s campaign literature attacking the slaughter – which took the form of leaflets which the public could take free of charge from animal rights/welfare stalls in High Streets across the UK – constituted advertising. Additionally, it ruled that posters also constitute advertising, even when displayed on stalls.

Our first concern is that campaign literature does not fall within the ASA’s remit under its Code of Practice and to have made this judgment it has calculatedly decided to attack freedom of speech in order to protect commercial interests.

I don’t want to get too technical at this stage but there were several findings against the wording of the leaflets but the most outrageous should worry everyone who campaigns. The ASA said it was untrue for Viva! to claim that the continued slaughter of the largest and fittest animals (millions are killed every year) was contrary to natural selection and had the ‘potential for extinction’. This claim was based on the opinions of reputable Australian wildlife scientists and campaign groups. The KIAA said it had a monitoring system which would indicate when populations had fallen to a point when they were at risk, when they would stop the killing and prevent extinction, therefore our claim was incorrect.

This complex scientific argument was resolved by a career bureaucrat sitting in London, with no scientific knowledge, no knowledge of wildlife and incapable of reaching an informed judgment. She found against Viva! simply because she chose to believe the claims of the KIAA’s scientists rather than ours. Essentially we had to disprove their claim – something which is quite impossible until the animals actually become extinct – and why we were careful to use the word ‘potential’ when referring to extinction. Of course, all across the globe, those who exploit the natural world claim that they monitor and scientifically measure the impact of their destruction and it has been a disaster. If this judgment is allowed to stand, no group will be able to express their concerns without hedging their words with so much caution that their literature will be utterly emasculated.

We believe this case could have been influenced by the fact that Viva! has already delivered a blow to the KIAA by ending the sale of kangaroo meat in all the UK’s big supermarket chains and is currently campaigning against kangaroo skin, with the multinational manufacturer Adidas as our primary target. We have also in the past registered a complaint against the same bureaucrat who handled this case. Although the judgment might have been aimed at teaching Viva! a lesson, it has implications for everyone.

In the opinion of one of our trustees, Michael Mansfield QC, the ASA Code of Practice does not cover campaign literature for although it makes reference to leaflets it is in terms of ‘advertisements in leaflets’. In Mr Mansfield’s opinion, the leaflet in question could not have been seen as containing advertisements, not even for Viva! itself. It was clearly a campaign leaflet tackling an issue of great public importance and fell outside the ASA’s remit.

Viva! has already appealed to the ASA that campaign leaflets fall outside its terms of reference and has been dismissed. There is nowhere else to go as arbitration will only consider a specific complaint and not matters of principle. For this reason, we intend to go public, using Michael Mansfield’s preeminent legal standing to focus attention on the ASA’s disturbing censorship of public debate and call upon them to rescind their decision. This clearly affects every campaign group in the country and we believe that the more organisations who back our call and who attach their names to it, the more seriously it will be taken, the greater the press coverage it will receive and the more likely it is to succeed.

Please seriously consider adding your support. If you want a more detailed explanation of our case I will happily provide it.

Kind regards
Tony Wardle
Associate Director Viva!  
 
 
 
contact details 
 
McLibel Support Campaign
5 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9DX, UK.
Tel/Fax: +44 (207) 713 1269
E-mail: mclibel@globalnet.co.uk
Web: http://www.mcspotlight.org 
 
 
 
related links  
 
- Save The Kangaroo
- press releases & statements
- press cuttings: McDonald's
- press cuttings: McLibel
- press cuttings: Campaigns
- press cuttings: McLibel film
- press cuttings: related stuff
- The McLibel Trial
- witnesses statements, transcripts, evidence