SEA SHEPHERD CREW OCCUPY CONSULATE, MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

14/04/2008 — Today 5 mem­bers and sup­port­ers ofthe Sea Shep­herd crew, the ‘Steve Irwin’ occu­pied the offices of the Cana­di­an con­sulates rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Mel­bourne with over 40 activists demon­strat­ing out the front…

Ships man­ag­er Ben­jamin Bald­win said, “We are stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with our fel­low crew who were mis­treat­ed and ille­gal­ly detained in inter­na­tion­al waters.

‘We were here to present our con­cerns to the Hon­orary Con­sul, Lois Apple­by. We are call­ing on the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment to drop charges against our crew and apol­o­gise to the crew for this gross breach of inter­na­tion­al law.

‘We are relieved upon hear­ing this morn­ing that charges were dropped against some of the crew, how­ev­er call on the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment to drop all charges against the Cap­tain and First Offi­cer pri­or to their next hear­ing on the 1st May – they have no juris­dic­tion.

‘We demand an end to the seal slaugh­ter and call on Aus­tralians to make their views known to the Cana­di­an con­sulate.

The activists were escort­ed from the build­ing by police after being threat­ened with arrest as a result of their peace­ful protest. There were manyges­tures of sup­port from the gen­er­al pub­lic out the front of the action with many peo­ple shocked that the hunt was still tak­ing place.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion: Ben­jamin Bald­win on 0412 730 813 or 0422 990 040

A pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er was on hand and fur­ther pic­tures are avail­able.