Japanese whalers take Sea Shepherds hostage (incl. Brit) — demo, L’don, 16 January; email addresses; release demands; videos

15.01.2008 — [lat­est update at bot­tom]
In what has been an unpre­dictably dra­mat­ic day for the cam­paign against whal­ing in Antarc­ti­ca, the crew of a Japan­ese har­poon gun­boat have seized Aus­tralian and British crew mebers of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, Steve Irwin.

Astound­ing! Last year around this time, things were real­ly get­ting dra­mat­ic in the Sea Shep­herd pur­suit of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet across Antarc­ti­ca. Crew miss­ing at sea, ship­board fires, the risk of a pris­tine envi­ron­ment being chem­i­cal­ly dec­i­mat­ed, and even one human death as an accom­pa­ni­ment to the slaugh­ter of hun­dreds of mam­moth sen­tient beings.

Not to be out­done, the 2007/08 sea­son of resis­tance has just kicked into over­drive. Today, the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court called Japan­ese whal­ing — in Aus­tralian waters, at least — what it is: ille­gal. The Hon­ourable Jus­tice All­sop issued an injunc­tion order­ing that all Japan­ese whal­ing with­in Aus­tralian Antarc­tic waters (which Japan and most oth­er coun­tries don’t rec­og­nize) stop imme­di­ate­ly. So, tech­ni­cal­ly, since about 3pm Aus­tralian East Coast time every sin­gle crew mem­ber of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been eli­gi­ble for arrest should they enter Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­ries.

But the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, as always, need­ed to up the ante. In the last 50 min­utes it has been report­ed that the crew of the har­poon gun­boat Yashin Maru II have tak­en two Sea Shep­herd activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts and a Briton, Giles Lane — hostage, and tied them to the radar mast of their ship. Ear­li­er today the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Steve Irwin broke off its pur­suit of the whale-pro­cess­ing fac­to­ry ves­sel, also known as the Cetacean Death Star, the Nis­shin Maru. With Green­peace’s Esper­an­za still pur­su­ing the fac­to­ry ship away from the rest of the whal­ing fleet, the Shep­herds turned about to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the rest of the scat­tered fleet.

Obvi­ous­ly, they found them alright. Shep­herd Cap­tain Paul Wat­son reports that the two men, who have now been effec­tive­ly kid­napped on the high seas — iron­i­cal­ly, a gen­uine act of pira­cy by the Japan­ese whalers — had board­ed the ship to deliv­er a let­ter to the cap­tain pro­claim­ing their whal­ing activ­i­ty ille­gal and demand­ing an imme­di­ate ces­sa­tion of whale-hunt­ing, as per the order made today by the Fed­er­al Court.

Seems that Aus­tralian con­cerns about cre­at­ing a diplo­mat­ic inci­dent with Japan pale in com­par­i­son to what the whal­ing fleet are clear­ly eager to cre­ate.

Stay tuned.

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The Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2 has tak­en two Sea Shep­herd vol­un­teer crew mem­bers hostage. Ben­jamin Potts 28, an Aus­tralian cit­i­zen and Giles Lane, 35, a cit­i­zen of Great Britain are being held hostage onboard the whal­ing ves­sel. Both men were assault­ed and then tied to the rail­ings of the whaler. They were then moved and tied to the radar mast by the whalers.

Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet On the Run With Two Sea Shep­herd Hostages

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety’s ship Steve Irwin is in full pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet includ­ing the Japan­ese sup­ply ves­sel Ori­en­tal Blue­bird.

Both men board­ed the Yushin Maru to deliv­er a mes­sage to the Japan­ese cap­tain that the whalers were in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law by tar­get­ing endan­gered species in an estab­lished whale sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing. They also noti­fied the cap­tain that Aus­tralia had just passed a court rul­ing bar­ring Japan­ese whalers from the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

All of this activ­i­ty has tak­en place in the area of 60 Degrees South and 78 Degrees East. All activ­i­ty has been doc­u­ment­ed from the Sea Shep­herd heli­copter and the fast mov­ing Delta ves­sel. The Steve Irwin has dis­patched a small fast Delta boat and a heli­copter to attempt to per­suade the Yushin Maru No. 2 to stop and release the hostages.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son has noti­fied the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police that he would like to see kid­nap­ping charges brought against the Japan­ese whalers. The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and the British Embassy have been informed that their cit­i­zens are being held hostage on an ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed Japan­ese whal­ing ship in Inter­na­tion­al waters.

The Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru has fled over 700 miles to the North­west and is head­ing towards South Africa accom­pa­nied by the Green­peace ship Esper­an­za. The entire whal­ing fleet is on the run and out­side of the whal­ing area with the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin in hot pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese fleet.

No whales have been slaugh­tered for the last four days and it does not look as if the whal­ing oper­a­tions are going to begin again for anoth­er week at least, and not at all if the ves­sels are pre­vent­ed from regroup­ing. The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has a good sup­ply of fuel and can remain in the area for some time and will con­tin­ue to police the ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions by the Japan­ese fleet.

Sea Shep­herd cap­tain Paul Wat­son will turn over author­i­ty to the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment to enforce the court rul­ing against ille­gal whal­ing in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone upon request from the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and an agree­ment that Aus­tralia will enforce the court’s rul­ing to bar all Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.

The let­ter tak­en aboard:

To: The Cap­tain of any Japan­ese ship involved with poach­ing oper­a­tions in The Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

Sir,

My name is Giles David Lane

I am a British cit­i­zen and an unpaid vol­un­teer on the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel Steve Irwin

I have come onboard your ship because you have refused to acknowl­edge com­mu­ni­ca­tion from our ship per­tain­ing to your ille­gal activ­i­ties in the waters of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

I am not board­ing your ship with the intent to com­mit a crime, to rob you or to inflict injury upon your crew and your­self or dam­age to your ship. My rea­son for board­ing is to deliv­er the mes­sage that you are in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and in vio­la­tion of the laws of Aus­tralia. It is my intent to deliv­er this mes­sage and then to request that you allow me to dis­em­bark from your ves­sel with­out harm or seizure.

I am empow­ered to act to uphold these laws in accor­dance with the Unit­ed Nations World Char­ter for Nature and the laws of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you with the request that you please refrain from any fur­ther crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in these waters and cease and desist with the con­tin­ued killing of endan­gered whales in this des­ig­nat­ed Whale Sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of the IWC glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing and that you cease and desist in con­tin­ued vio­la­tions of Aus­tralian law by killing whales with­in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of Aus­tralia with­out per­mit or per­mis­sion from the gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you on the orders of Cap­tain Paul Wat­son who requests that you treat me with respect and in accor­dance with the Gene­va Con­ven­tion.

http://www.seashepherd.org/

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Pick­et at 2.15pm 16/1/08 at Japan­ese Embassy, Lon­don. Near­est Tubes Green Park & Hyde Park Cor­ner.

The address is:101–104 Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don, W1J 7JT
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It would be great if every­one could take a moment to email the Japan­ese embassy and For­eign office and ask them to do what­ev­er they can to effect Giles’ release. Japan­ese Embassy: info@jpembassy.org.uk

For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office: It would be good to copy them in to what­ev­er you send to the Embassy. I had some trou­ble get­ting hold of an email address, but you could try the fol­low­ing one — msu.publicin@fco.gov.uk; Meg Munn is the Min­is­ter “respon­si­ble” for Asia and the Pacific.meg.munn@fco.gov.uk or munnm@parliament.uk
020 7008 1500

Sug­ges­tion of what to write: Dear Japan­ese Ambassador,I am writ­ing to you to protest in the strongest pos­si­ble terms the tak­ing of two hostages on board a Japan­ese Whal­ing Ship this morning.Press reports (see links below) have sug­gest­ed that the two men, (one of whom is a UK Nation­al by the name of Giles Lane), who peace­ful­ly board­ed the Yushin Maru No. 2 to deliv­er a let­ter, were assault­ed and then tied up. Pho­tographs from their own ves­sel, the Sea Shep­herd, show the two men being tied up out­side. The inci­dent hap­pened sev­er­al hours ago and I am great­ly con­cerned for their safety.I demand that you inter­vene at once to ensure that these men are released, pro­tect­ed from the ele­ments, and returned safe­ly to their ves­sel as soon as pos­si­ble. I also hope that your gov­ern­ment will ensure that the cap­tain and crew of the Yushin Maru No. 2 be pros­e­cut­ed for their actions.Yours sin­cere­ly, etc

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16/1/2008

Japan­ese Whalers Make Demands for Return of Hostages

The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, the front group for the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tions are mak­ing demands for the release of the two Sea Shep­herd crew being held hostage onboard the Japan­ese whal­ing ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2.

The whalers said they will return the hostages in return for Sea Shep­herd agree­ing to no longer inter­fere with their whal­ing oper­a­tions.

“The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research is act­ing like a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion,” said Steve Irwin’s 1st Offi­cer Peter Brown. “Here they are tak­ing hostages and mak­ing demands. Our pol­i­cy is that we don’t respond to ter­ror­ist demands.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has heard reports from the media that Japan has agreed to release the hostages but the Steve Irwin has not heard any­thing offi­cial from either the Aus­tralian or Japan­ese gov­ern­ments.

“The activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet are ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. The Japan­ese are poach­ers and should be treat­ed in the same man­ner as ele­phant or tiger poach­ers,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety will not nego­ti­ate with poach­ers and demands that the Japan­ese whalers release Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane as soon as pos­si­ble.

The loca­tion of the Yushin Maru No. 2 with the hostages onboard is not known present­ly. The ves­sel is no longer in sight or with­in radar range of the Steve Irwin.

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BBC video of ship being board­ed

Col­lec­tion of dif­fer­ent videos