The University of Florida

Saturday, April 28

An outraged citizens group emerged in Gainesville over the weekend to launch a surprise offensive against primate torture at UF.

The group had an energized and productive demo at a still-undisclosed location. Many in attendance report that people were “shocked and disgusted” upon learning that UF imprisons, terrorizes, and murders monkeys with their tax dollars.

NIO Florida regrets that we were unable to join our new comrades yesterday, but look forward to strengthening each other’s efforts in the future.

Details of yesterday’s action will be updated as we learn more.

Sunday, April 29

This morning’s 9 a.m. demonstration at the University City Church of Christ — church of the Gators – was an extraordinary success. The congregation is composed of UF alumni and faculty, several of their vivisectors, and community members from the surrounding area.

Parishioners met a spectacle this morning as they arrived to a church being “protected” by four police cruisers. Activists were ejected from the property and a minister named “Mike” retrieved all leaflets that had been distributed. When asked if he thought God approved of monkeys being tortured for money, he replied “God doesn’t approve of many things.” Rather noncommittal for a man of the cloth. We were relegated to the back of the church where all traffic entering or exiting needed to pass through our lines. It was reminiscent of other activist groups who’s tactics NIO hugely admires.

Many who came for the later 10:20 a.m. service took our literature.

We thoroughly enjoyed being flipped off, told to “go fuck yourselves,” and “go get a job” by these devout Christians — they could not contain their anger at our presence. It was apparent that monkey murder at UF was the subject of today’s sermon and every single person in that overflowing church knew exactly why we were there. They support the atrocities were and were very uncomfortable about having to face us. They trickled out all morning to confront us, curse at us, and, our favorite by far, was the old gentleman that Marino smiled and greeted with a “good morning, do you know what UF is doing with your tax money?” He replied with a Nazi salute and a “Zeig Heil!” The exchange descended rather rapidly from there.

Because we felt so welcome and at home with all the monkey-torture-supporting alumni in this congregation, NIO Florida is looking forward to our next action at this location. In fact, several of us are thinking of joining the worshipers in the future.