Japan to arrest anti-whaling activists, newspaper reports

Sunday 07th December, 06:52 AM JST

TOKYO —

Anti-whaling activists will be arrested if they forcibly interrupt Japan’s whale hunting in the Antarctic Ocean, a report said Saturday.

The fisheries agency and justice ministry made the decision as a boat belonging to the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society set sail from Australia in a bid to disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet, the Sankei Shimbun said.

Crew members from Japan’s fleet would capture activists and hand them over to the Japanese Coastguard if they board the whalers, the report in the daily added.

If arrested by the coast guard, they would be charged with forcible obstruction of business under Japanese law.

During the last Antarctic hunt, Japan alleged that Sea Shepherd activists tracked down and hurled bottles of chemicals at the fleet to disrupt operations, leading Japan to label them “terrorists.”

Two activists boarded a Japanese whaler in January, sparking a two-day standoff before they were handed over to an Australian customs vessel.

Japan’s fleet set off in mid-November heading for the Antarctic Ocean with plans to slaughter hundreds of whales, despite strong opposition from Australia and New Zealand, where whale-watching is a popular pastime.

Japanese whalers kill about 1,000 whales a year using a loophole in a 1986 global whaling moratorium that allows “lethal research” on the ocean giants.

Tokyo makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up on dinner tables and accuses Westerners of insensitivity to its whaling culture. Only Norway and Iceland defy the whaling moratorium outright.

Wire reports

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Latest 15 of 90 Total Comments Show All

alexdal at 07:00 AM JST - 9th December

Killing a free animail is the worst thing to do! Killing a free animal that is disappering from the world is evil Killing the most intellinget animal like is monkeys dolphins and whales is the worst thing that a countrt of people so intelligent can do. Most of japanese do not eat dolphins and whales. BUT YAKUZA pay the minister of fish with a lot of money to have the meat fot the resturant of mafia!
cleo at 10:16 AM JST - 9th December

Unless we use the word "slaughter" to mean killing any animal anywhere for human consumption....

And don't we? The word isn't emotionally charged at all, unless you want to claim that the kills are purely in the name of science and the meat isn't intended for food at all. And not even the pro-whalers try to claim that any more.

ORIGIN Middle English (as a noun): from Old Norse slátr ‘butcher's meat’ ; related to slay . The verb dates from the mid 16th cent.

Killing a free animail is the worst thing to do!

But it's OK to kill a captive animal?

Moderator: Readers, please stay on topic and don't get bogged down in semantics.
taiko666 at 06:46 PM JST - 9th December

Ah, the annual whale hunt slanging match.

Nothing much changes.

Japan will continue to blatantly and cringe-makingly lie; Sea Shepherd will continue to grab headlines by being one of the few action groups in the world willing to actually go and do something, while people with absolutely no sense of proportion will continue to call them terrorists; Japan will hurl its toys out of the pram; and while all this hubbub is distracting everyone, Japan will continue to hunt other species (eg tuna) to the edge of extinction (as it did to the Japanese Sea Lion. RIP)

BTW I'm sure Sea Shepherd will be able to disrupt the hunt without transgressing any of the laws of Antarctica Prefecture.
Heda_Madness at 03:04 AM JST - 10th December

Perhaps they're not terrorists. But they are in breach of international and maritime laws. Which, at the very least makes them pirates. Like it or not (and the majority on hear don't) but Japan is guilty of neither of these.
badge123 at 07:58 AM JST - 10th December

Double standard, some say Japan is breaking the law so its ok for these vigilanties to take the laws into their own hands. Then someone mentions international waters, but then another person says its Australian waters so what do you want it to be?

Just because someone robs you of your money, you can't take the law into your own hands and rob them back.
taiko666 at 03:12 PM JST - 10th December

But they are in breach of international and maritime laws. Which, at the very least makes them pirates.

Really? If you were to sail a ship with a broken navigation light you'd be breaking maritime laws, but would that make you a pirate? Pirates are people who are guilty of piracy, not people who merely break maritime law. Also, even boarding a ship without permission is at most trespass, not piracy.

Just because someone robs you of your money, you can't take the law into your own hands and rob them back.

If somebody snatched 10000 yen from my pocket I'd be perfectly entitled to snatch it back. But I see the point you were trying to make.

I agree throwing butter was illegal, as was boarding without permission (in order to deliver a letter!!!) illegal.

In these ultra-conformist times where the right of protest is being eroded all over the world, borderline illegal and sometimes illegal activity can be justified. But never violence (and throwing butter at a ship is not violence.) Insisting that the law always trumps morals just makes one a subservient, non-thinking drone (the way world governments want you.)

To be honest, I'd rather Sea Shepherd didn't do anything obviously illegal. But I fully support their right to obstruct the hunt.
Heda_Madness at 04:13 PM JST - 10th December

Okay, so they're not pirates. However

http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-070105-1.html

And

Question No. 7 Sea Shepherd flies the Jolly Roger, the pirate flag. Are you pirates?

Captain Paul Watson: We get called pirates, and it is an accusation that does not bother us much. In fact we kind of like it. First there is the romantic appeal of swashbuckling pirates and kids love the image, they love our flag and logo.

Secondly we do consider ourselves pirates of compassion in pursuit of pirates of greed. There is sometimes a need to be a pirate if for nothing else because sometimes pirates are needed to stop pirates.
OhioDonna at 03:10 AM JST - 11th December

People on earth make no secret of the fact that they disagree with the way that Japanese 'research' whale meat ends up on dinner tables and accuses Japan of insensitivity to world opinion.

Better on the dinner table that to throw the meat away.
bakabaka at 01:58 PM JST - 11th December

Japan is being the nail that sticks up. Is it any surprise they get hammered down?
USARonin at 04:46 PM JST - 11th December

In Hawaii they're runnin' A&E commercials for some anti-whalin' folks that proudly say they're gonna mess with Japanese whalers. It's supposed to be a whole new TV show for the next season

I'm hopin' the Japanese whalers proceed right on course and let the laws of physics take their place in natural order the universe.

I don't think A&E will allow the videotapes of antin-whalin' folks findin' out if there really is a God be aired. Well, I'm sure they'd love to air it just as much as I'd love to see it, but the US FCC would probably fine them big time if they did.
dreamdrifter at 09:29 PM JST - 12th December

Bit of a misleading headline here. Japan is only saying that anyone forcibly boarding their vessel on the high seas will be detained, which I think is reasonable enough and of course perfectly legal (it could even be argued that the captain would be negligent in his duty to do otherwise).

The only way Japan will stop whaling is to turn Japanese public opinion against it, and the actions of Sea Shephard are only serving to discredit the entire anti-whaling movement in the eyes of the Japanese public (and thus playing straight into the hands of the very small pro-whaling lobby.)

The anti-whaling movement's biggest enemy is themselves, and the fact that 95% of their arguments are full of flaws and eclipse the remaining 5%.

notimpressed:Just something I noticed in your post:

Japan has no claim itself, and could never make one as it would be ridiculous coming from a country which is ten times closer to the arctic, in the opposite hemisphere of the planet.

Norway, Britain and France have made claims, so cleary distance isn't an issue here.
taniwha at 12:36 PM JST - 13th December

Arguably accusations of piracy can be leveled at both sides, the Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepard. While the whalers apprehending unwelcome guests is understandable, handing them over to the Japanese coastguard is not. Rather handing them over to a third party would make far more sense.

The Japanese coastguard has no jurisdiction over international waters. If the SDF or some renamed arm of it appears in the Antarctic waters effectively the Japanese government is staking a claim on what it doesn't own, and doing so using military means. In most other parts of the world, in international waters this could be seen as provocation in the extreme. Unlikely though that either New Zealand or Australia are going to go down that path. After all Japan is a prime market for what both countries are good at exporting.

The situation underlines the intractable contradiction between nation states and capitalism, and yet another example of how difficult it will be to save our natural environment and ourselves while both nation states and capitalism remain in place. Nation states were originally set up to maintain capitalist markets, and to justify forcibly creating new ones. The problem though remains the impossibility of fixing a 'dollar/yen' value to the natural world and particularly to the need to save it for future generations. Most people know it should be saved, science tells us that biodiversity is essential to a healthy environment, yet corporate profit and the driving capitalist need to ever increase profit means there is profit to be made by destroying our world. And its always only a short term profit that means there is always ever more competition to secure (i.e. destroy).

Pity the whales and the whalers. At least the crew of the Sea Shephard do their thing without a gunship standing by.
smithinjapan at 09:27 PM JST - 13th December

I kinda hope they do capture and threaten to charge an Aussie boat crew... then I hope a few Aussie Navy ships catch the whaling fleet, or part of it, and refuse to ever let them go. I mean, they're not far off Aussie waters, so why not? If it becomes more of an international issue over a couple of gunships standing off, good... more attention drawn to Japan's bull###t 'science'.
dreamdrifter at 10:46 PM JST - 13th December

The Japanese coastguard has no jurisdiction over international waters. If the SDF or some renamed arm of it appears in the Antarctic waters effectively the Japanese government is staking a claim on what it doesn't own, and doing so using military means. In most other parts of the world, in international waters this could be seen as provocation in the extreme.

I doubt it. Nations regularly conduct military operations on the high seas on the principle that international waters are "free to all nations but belong to none of them". How do you think they catch pirates?
taniwha at 07:12 PM JST - 14th December

The difference is in the nature of the commerce. The Somalian pirates for example are destroying commerce between nations. Most particularly they directly undermine the profitability of the Suez canal which is the main source of income for Egypt as well as threatening the profit margin of other nations requiring the short sea route the canal supplies. That shipping route affects everyone and that means the pirates are labeled internationally as criminals.

The Japanese government is exacting its own law in international waters with only its own interests at heart. They are also affecting the commerce of both NZ and Australia directly in terms of their whale watching industry. Japan is acting in this case as the rogue agent and can equally be accused of the crime of piracy just as the Sea Shephard can. That is the international law issue involved here.