Los Angeles ? A judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday against animal rights groups and activists accused of threatening UCLA employees and graduate students because they conduct research using animals.

The order forbids the activists from engaging in acts of harassment and threats of violence, and requires that they stay away from anybody who is known to be a university employee involved in animal research, UCLA’s attorney John C. Hueston said.

It also ordered the activists and their groups to remove the researchers’ personal information from Web sites that name them as targets of their protest.

Three times since June 2006, Molotov cocktail-type devices have been left near the homes of faculty members who oversee or participate in research that involves animals, according to the university.

Researchers’ homes have been vandalized, and they have received threatening phone calls and e-mails.