Animal Rising Channel Now on UnchainedTV
The new Animal Rising Channel on UnchainedTV shows videos of the daring UK animal rights organization known for their press-grabbing, direct-action campaigns
Los Angeles, April 11th, 2024 — In the last few years, activists with the famous UK animal rights group Animal Rising have repeatedly used dramatic protests to make front page headlines in British media. Now, they have another platform to spread their message: the Animal Rising Channel on UnchainedTV.
Animal Rising has made global news with its risk-taking actions. These include disrupting the most important horse racing event in the UK called The Grand National, rescuing lambs from one of King Charles’ estates, and occupying massive dairy factories. Many of the activists have been arrested — some of them tackled quite brutally — and faced prosecution for their daring, but non-violent, actions. However, this is a price many of them seem willing to pay to reach bigger audiences with their animal rights message. After a rebranding in 2023, Animal Rising activists stand out as a unit by wearing matching pink sweatshirts with an upside-down letter A.
While celebrating the launch of the new channel, UnchainedTV’s Jane Velez-Mitchell talked to Animal Rising Co-Directors Ben Newman and Rose Patterson. You can watch their conversation here:
From Animal Rebellion to Animal Rising
Rose Patterson is a British animal rights activist who became vegan 12 years ago after watching the documentary Earthlings. She explains the origins of Animal Rising:
“We formed in 2019, and we were called Animal Rebellion. We were kind of a sister organization to Extinction Rebellion, which is obviously very climate-focused. The original reason for Animal Rebellion to form was to inject the need for a plant-based food system into the climate messaging because no one was talking about animal agriculture and its effect on climate change.”
Over the first couple of years, they started seeing progress within the climate movement. More groups, including Extinction Rebellion, began talking about animal agriculture. Patterson explains why they ended up rebranding their organization:
“Now, we’ve been bringing the animal message in more, doing things like rescuing and liberating beagles, and like the Grand National protest, but using those actions and those events to draw attention to the wider issue of the suffering of all animals. Is about ending exploitation of animals for both them and the planet.”
They decided to go big and disrupt very iconic events with civil disobedience actions knowing that this would draw a lot of media attention. Patterson explains the message they were trying to spread:
“Our message is that we need to transition to a plant-based food system and have a massive rewilding program to end the animal and climate emergency. We do this through a variety of ways. We are best known for our direct action, and we also have other campaigns targeted at many transitional or institutional changes.”
“One of our main objectives is to reach the public and to start this national conversation about the way we’re treating animals, and I think the Grand National action was the one that achieved that.” — Rose Patterson, Animal Rising
Press-Grabbing Direct Actions
Ben Newman is the co-director of Animal Rising. He became vegan after watching the Australian documentary Dominion. He’s been interviewed numerous times on mainstream media about Animal Rising’s now historic April 2023 disruption of the Grand National horse racing event at the Aintree horse racecourse in the North of England. Newman called the protest, “the beginning of the end for horse racing.” With 70,000 people in attendance, and a huge contingent of news media already in place to report on what’s considered the UK’s most important horse racing event, it turned to be the perfect venue and occasion to get massive news coverage. Cameras were rolling as more than 100 animal activists were arrested during the action. Some used ladders to climb over barricades around the course and attempted to use glue and locking devices to attach themselves to the fences. Many activists complained they were beaten and verbally taunted by police. But, they got tons of publicity, as Newman explains:
“That was the number one news in the UK for 36 hours. We had 60 live interviews in two or three days. Basically, we had a team of people doing interviews…Although horse racing isn’t our focus, we were, I suppose, using the platform to talk about all animals. The Grand National ended up changing their rules for the following year. There were 118 arrests at the Grand National. It was pretty wild.”
Even prior to the disruption, Animal Rising had been front page news because an undercover journalist had infiltrated one of their training sessions. However, despite having lost the element of surprise, they still managed to pull off a news media tour de force. In June of 2023, Newman also disrupted another horse race, this time in Epsom, for which he received a suspended sentence.
“On the Grand National, I was one of the people who made it onto the track. It was quite an experience running down the middle of the Grand National at exactly 5:00 when it was supposed to have started.”— Ben Newman, Animal Rising
More than Just Direct Action
In addition to streaming videos about their protests, UnchainedTV’s Animal Rising channel also showcases their educational campaigns. Newman explains:
“The work we’re doing is going quite well. For example, the Plant-based Universities Campaign. We’re passing motions through student unions for 100% plant-based campuses. First, the student unions, which in the UK normally control a few restaurants, and we’ve done that in 10 universities in the UK. And we’re doing it now in Europe. We got 60 campaigns in the UK and 20 in Europe.”
This summer, they will gather hundreds of students for a plant-based camp in the UK, and 100 for another one in Germany. In addition to mobilizing students, Animal Rising is also lobbying local politicians. They’re getting municipal councils to vote for making all the events they cater plant-based.
“Our current strategy is to create this ecosystem of multiple campaigns that are all directed towards the same goal of a transition to a plant-based food system, but they’re all using different tactics and techniques to do that.” — Rose Patterson, Animal Rising
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