Protests should be phoned through in the first instance to: Independent Television Commission (ITC): 020-7255 3000

The ad was specifically aired on Channel 4 on Thursday 8 March at about 3pm. Imperial Cancer Research Fund: 0800-316 4000 (Freefone donation line.) This a call centre manned by non-ICRF staff who will redirect you to the London office on 020-7269 3662, however no harm in giving them your views, compliments of ICRF.

You can complain to the ITC from their web site : http://www.itc.org.uk/contact/adspons_complaint_form.asp

ICRF Support Liaison Manager Catherine Coyne told me that they only had a few complaints, and because of its enormous success, they plan to continue using the ad for the foreseeable future; unless, of course, we can mobilise enough protests. Thank you.

Follow-up message :

Hello, just to let you know we had the same advert in Scotland a few months ago and responded with complaint to the ITC. Their response was 'we don't think it is offensive because Imperial Cancer intended the advertisement to represent people who had shown great courage against adversity.' Talk about missing the point of the complaint with a typically politically-oriented non-commital stance.....the ITC basically stated what the advert states, despite the fact this is exactly what Gandhi was fighting against !

Also, I wrote to The Gandhi Foundation for support in Scotland which they promised to do - there is a chapter in England whose president is Richard Attenborough. They can be contacted on :-

The Gandhi Foundation,
Kingsley Hall,
Powis Road,
Bromley-by-Bow'
London,
E3 3HJ.

Email: idguk@clara.co.uk
Website: www.poptel.org.uk/rjf/gw

The website address provides some links which may prove useful for extra pressure against Imperial Cancer and their buddies at the ITC.

Some words of Gandhi :

'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

Vivisection is the blackest of all crimes that man is at present committing....it ill becomes us if we in turn will not practise elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.'
The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism.

'We have to make truth and nonviolence not matters for mere individual practice but for practice by groups and communities and nations. That, at any rate, is my dream. I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction.' MK Gandhi.

'I want to realise brotherhood or identity not merely with the the beings called human, but I want to realise identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth.' Words of Gandhi.

'I hold today the same opinion as I held then. To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.'
An Autobiography, the Story of My Experiments.