Statement on Palestine and the Animal Rights Forum (2024)

As the genocide and occupation in Palestine continues, we at Farm Transparency Project would like to reaffirm our commitment to collective liberation and consistent anti-oppression.

While animal rights and liberation will always be our primary focus as an organisation, we recognise that social justice movements do not exist in isolation, and we strive to be allies to other struggles for justice and do our best to challenge injustice wherever it arises in society.

This extends to a policy to not work with, accept money from, or knowingly platform individuals or organisations that are at odds with our ethical values - whether it be racism, sexism, transphobia, Zionism, or other. 

Regrettably, we are not immune to making mistakes, and are aware of recent criticism directed at us for our attendance of a particular event early last year. While we've been open in discussing the issue and reflecting on feedback with supporters who have contacted us about it, we felt it was necessary to publish a more detailed statement for anyone uncertain about where we stand. You can find this statement on our website, through the link in our bio. 

We hope that this statement provides clarity to those who have concerns or questions after seeing this criticism. This is a long and detailed article and we have chosen to turn off comments on this post, as we don't have the time or resources to properly monitor or respond to what could be a comment section filled with strong opinions. We encourage people to reach out with questions and we will seek to respond as best as we can. We will not respond to threats, aggression, offensive or insulting messages.

You can read more about our values and ethical positions at www.farmtransparency.org/core-values

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over the past month, a number of new posts have been made which have raised questions and doubts regarding FTP's position on the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine. These posts have specifically referred to FTP's participation in last year’s Animal Rights Forum, which took place in Melbourne/Naarm in February 2024 and which FTP staff members attended and presented at.

As an organisation, we believe that online call-out culture is in direct opposition to community building and movement building. We are constantly learning and growing, and always welcome feedback on how to better align our actions with our values. Anonymous posts which knowingly spread misinformation are, in our opinion, at best unhelpful and at worst incredibly harmful. While we believe that these posts have been made in bad faith by individuals with ulterior motives, we do believe in transparency and honesty so we wanted to directly address the issues that have been raised.

Background

It’s no secret that the animal rights movement in Australia has suffered greatly in the last several years, as a result of the pandemic and the incursion of harmful right-wing ideals. At its peak in 2018-19, there were often multiple protests, rallies or outreach events most weeks, and major direct actions and marches drawing thousands of participants and enormous mainstream media coverage. Since emerging from the last of Melbourne’s many COVID-19 lockdowns, one of our primary focuses at FTP has been to rebuild this community, though with a stronger foundation of collective liberation and consistent anti-oppression. 

When the first Animal Rights Forum since 2019 was announced, we recognised the potential value of this event as a means of reconnecting and growing the movement. We were invited to present and attend, as well as to set up a table with information at the event. We originally had concerns about participating due to the views and behaviour of some past organisers and speakers, however we were assured that these people were no longer involved and that great care would be taken this time, which unfortunately turned out not to be the case. It has been claimed that we funded or 'bankrolled' the event; this is untrue. We were listed as sponsors as we had initially offered to cover the flight costs of a notable international speaker, who ended up not being able to attend. We then chose to pay for our tickets, rather than attending for free as presenters. 

In the days leading up to the event, we were cc'd on an email to organisers and presenters from an anonymous account, alleging that one of the people who was listed as speaking at the conference was a Zionist (meaning, among other things, that they supported the occupation and colonisation of Palestine) and had made posts expressing support for the ethnic cleansing and genocide being undertaken by Israel in Gaza. We and a few other presenters replied to the email, asking if the senders could provide us with some more information and evidence of the speaker’s Zionist views.

We received a reply the next day with a link to a Google document containing screenshots of social media posts by the speaker, indicating distress at the events of 7 October 2023, though without overt Zionist messaging. The forum organisers then provided a letter from the speaker, which refuted the claims and expressed support for Palestine. This was forwarded to the anonymous senders, but no reply was received. The day prior to the conference, another presenter noticed that additional screenshots had been quietly uploaded to the Google document. The new screenshots were of posts that were much more alarming, though under a different name to the listed presenter. We expressed concern to the forum organisers and were told that evening that “There's a lot of background to this whole situation that you aren't aware of. I will elaborate in person, but we certainly haven't treated this matter lightly.” 

With the forum due to commence the next morning, we discussed how we should proceed. We ultimately decided that there was too much doubt about the legitimacy of the claims, due to the limited evidence provided, the letter from the speaker refuting them, the lack of communication from the anonymous senders, and the assurances from the forum organisers, to warrant pulling out of what we still considered an important event, at the last minute. As event organisers ourselves, we were reluctant to cause such a disruption without an irrefutable justification.  

In hindsight, we acknowledge that, given doubts and uncertainty regarding the values of the organisers of the event and the particular speaker, we should have made the decision not to attend. If we could go back, we would do it differently. We have learnt from it and we are sorry that we weren't as rigorous as we should have been in choosing to attend this event.

The conference

On the first day of the conference, a protest was staged by pro-Palestinian activists during the presentation in question. Two FTP staff members were not present when this happened. The third filmed and chanted along. An organiser of the forum reacted violently towards the protestors, attempting to grab them and drag them away. After they left, the protestors set up outside and continued to chant and hold Palestinian flags. During the lunch break, FTP staff members left the conference and approached the protestors, intending to express our solidarity and share our disappointment with the response of the organisers to concerns raised and to the protest, particularly knowing now that the protesters were people we had personally known and worked alongside for years. We were met with hostility and aggression. It became clear that they had known about this speaker’s alleged views for quite some time. We asked why we hadn’t been contacted personally by them, as direct contact from people we knew and respected would have been much more credible than an anonymous email, and why contact hadn’t been made weeks earlier when there would have been more opportunity to verify the claims and get the speaker removed or else withdraw from the event. We were not given an answer, and instead were verbally abused until we realised that there was no prospect of a productive conversation, at which time we left.

Following this, one FTP staff member chose not to attend the second day of the conference, both because of family commitments, and discomfort at the behaviour of the organisers and the uncertainty around the speaker’s views.  Two more FTP staff members attended for part of the second day. We would like to both acknowledge and apologise for this decision, and explain some of the reasoning behind it. Upon reflection, we agree that returning to the conference was the wrong choice, given the concerns we had, the doubts over the event organisers’ position on Palestine and the aggressive approach to protestors by an organiser. At the time, members of FTP were hoping to make connections with international activist groups who were present. We also believed, and still believe, that there were good people involved in the conference who had worked incredibly hard on it, and we wanted to support that. We know however, that our decision to return raised doubts about our commitment to collective liberation, and we are sorry about that. We have learnt from this and now are more careful to ensure that the events we support, both as presenters and attendees, are in line with our values.

Response

The day after the event, we emailed the organisers of the conference, expressing our disappointment regarding their lack of response to concerns raised about platforming a potentially Zionist speaker, as well as their response to protestors on the day and a lack of communication in the leadup to the event. In this email we made it clear that we would not be participating in future conferences. We did not receive a reply. 

While we had previously - as an organisation and individuals - publicly called for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide, following the conference and criticism of our attendance we took the following actions:

1. We updated the Core Values and FAQ sections of our website to explicitly state our support for an end to Israeli occupation and a free Palestine.
   
   
2. In the days following the conference, we sent a message in our community chat for volunteers and those involved with our events. We explained and apologised for our attendance and answered questions. Many, if not all of our close supporters are actively involved in other social justice movements and choose to be involved with FTP because of our commitment to collective liberation. We are proud of this and always strive to listen to and respond to feedback from our supporters.
   
   
3. In the months following the conference, we made another post on our social media directly calling out the genocide in Gaza and directing people to further information and opportunities to donate and take action for Palestine. We framed this post as an important campaign update, and began it by briefly using footage of FTP investigations, in an effort to draw people into the video who may have been unlikely to watch it if we started with images from Gaza, making the argument that those who care about the slaughter of animals should extend their compassion and voice their opposition to the genocide.
   
   
4. We have continued to grow and learn as a team, and seek to improve how we stand up for all groups facing oppression and exploitation, while focusing on our mission to expose the reality of commercial animal farming and slaughter in Australia and help build a world where all are free from violence and oppression.
   
   
5. We have continued to assess and reevaluate our involvement with individuals and groups based on their alignment with our values and positions. Where before it was implicit, we now have an explicit policy to not work with, accept money from, or knowingly platform Zionist organisations or individuals.

Finally, claims have been made that FTP is funded by an organisation that is alleged to have Zionist director(s). While we cannot confirm the merits of this allegation, we can confirm that we have not received funding from this organisation in 10 years. Our funding comes from a mixture of private donations and sale of merchandise.

We hope that this statement provides clarity to those who have concerns or questions.

#freepalestine