Approximately a dozen animal rights protesters converged Saturday on Linda Bean’s Maine Kitchen and Topside Tavern, claiming it serves inhumanely mutilated lobsters from a Rockland processing plant

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been targeting the business for what it says is pain-inducing and unethical treatment of the lobsters it serves its customers. The campaign has included full-page ads in newspapers and Saturday’s demonstration, which included a short “march.”

PETA demonstrators were separated from the entrance of the restaurant Saturday by police barricades.

PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk said Linda Bean’s Maine Lobster slaughterhouse is the site of one of the most egregious abuses of animals — “live dismemberment.”

In her book “Making Kind Choices,” Newkirk tells the story that the first animal she stopped eating was lobsters.

“She realized that, not having vocal cords with which to protest, the lobster she had ordered broiled (alive) might have been trying to communicate by waving antennae,” according to the PETA website.

Armed with posters and a TV screen, Newkirk and other activists showed diners and would-be diners PETA’s video footage of workers ripping and tearing the legs, heads, and shells off live lobsters and breaking apart con- scious crabs’ shells with sharp spikes. The protesters refered to the business as “Linda Mean’s.”

Some counter-protesters demonstrated Saturday by holding signs charging the organization with killing Maine jobs.

Maria Burgess, one of three anti-PETA demonstrators, called the event “ridiculous.”

The demonstration lasted until 1:30 p.m. and police reported no incidents. A representative of Linda Bean’s Maine Kitchen and Topside Tavern was unavailable for comment.