Category: Animal Rights/Liberation

Sea Shepherd to Deploy Drones to Stop Massive Whale Slaughter

(Photo: Andrija Ilic/Reuters) 13th June In recent years, the annual dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan, have garnered headlines worldwide and sparked outrage among activists, scientists, celebrities,

(Photo: Andrija Ilic/Reuters) 13th June In recent years, the annual dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan, have garnered headlines worldwide and sparked outrage among activists, scientists, celebrities, and diplomats. But half a world away, in the North Atlantic nation of the Faeroe Islands, a similar slaughter has received far less scrutiny.

That’s about to change. On Friday, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society USA will unveil details of a new hi-tech initiative aimed at disrupting and halting the whale hunts, which begin this month and continue through September.

The annual hunts are known as “grinds.” As part of “Operation GrindStop 2014,” a land-based campaign, Sea Shepherd USA will deploy drones and livestream video to hinder the slaughter. Other Sea Shepherd organizations will launch simultaneous water-based campaigns.

Why the drones? They are “primarily for surveillance and documentation,” Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said in an email. “They are inexpensive and easy to operate, and they can get us into places we could not otherwise get to.”

Combined with livestreaming video, drone technology  “will allow us to cover the more than two dozen beaches in the Faeroes where whales may be killed,” Watson added. “The Faeroes present some logistical challenges, and we need to be able to deploy in such a way that all possible kill sites are monitored at all times.”

Drones might also detect approaching whales, he said, which would “allow us to take our boats to deflect the pods away from the islands.” (The Faeroe Islands campaign is funded in part by the Skoll Foundation, part of the Jeff Skoll Group, which includes Participant Media, TakePart’s parent company.)

Sea Shepherd USA will place four teams of at least 15 activists each on the ground.
Residents of the windswept Faeroes, a self-governing archipelago of Denmark between Norway and Iceland, have been killing fin whales, pilot whales, Atlantic white-sided dolphins, and other small marine mammals for centuries. Though the slaughter has received a smattering of attention in the global media, the Faeroes hunt has been largely overshadowed by the dolphin drives in Taiji, which were chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove.

As many as 1,000 endangered long-finned pilot whales, along with members of other species, are killed each year in the Faeroes during the “traditional” hunt, called grindadráp (“grind”) by islanders.

The hunt is even promoted as a tourist attraction. According to the Visit Faroe Islands website, one of the country’s main attractions is whaling.

“The pilot whale hunt in the Faroes is, by its very nature, a dramatic sight,” it states. “Entire schools of whales are killed on the shore and in the shallows of bays with knives which are used to sever the major blood supply to the brain.”

The method is “the most efficient and humane” means of killing “under the circumstances,” the website reassures potentially queasy tourists, “but it naturally results in a lot of blood in the water.”

This is not the first time that Sea Shepherd, which has been fighting against the Faeroes slaughter for more than 30 years, has used drones in a campaign, according to Jake Weber, Sea Shepherd drone specialist. But it is the first drone deployment in the Faeroes, he said in an email. “A great advantage they will provide is the ability to get [high-definition] footage and still photos very close to the grind without endangering our volunteers or their equipment.”

4 Arsons against Bristol’s cellular transmission infrastructure over 24 Hours

Around Bristol between June 9th-10th, we left 7 mobile phone antennae in flames. Daily continuation of capitalist society is dependent on uninterrupted flows (of goods, people, data, and energy) and the communications grid is no exception.

Around Bristol between June 9th-10th, we left 7 mobile phone antennae in flames. Daily continuation of capitalist society is dependent on uninterrupted flows (of goods, people, data, and energy) and the communications grid is no exception. The limited uses most of us can make from these flows only mask the way they are mainly used to oversee and impose the dominant order, and increase its' reach and control. You need only look to how the values of connectivity, speed, and mobility that are embodied in a mobile phone (for example) facilitate a relentless consumer culture and the requirement to be available and flexible at all times: as much for the benefit of the boss and the advertiser as for your family or friends. This is fully consistent with the modern restructuring and decentralisation of the gigantic productive system which this society subjects us to. Hindering all this was our objective.

2 antennae went up simultaneously, in Hambrook and outside Ram Hill business park in Coalpit Heath, both owned by O2. This is also not the first time O2 have been singled out for damage acts because of the contracts they hold in the migrant detention industry, with cops, and tagging for the probation service. Some hours later a 3rd O2 antenna went up in Coombe Dingle, at the same time as a 4th fire was lit after gaining access to transmission units connected to the huge BT telecommunication tower in Lockleaze. Signals that will have been affected are those of O2, T-Mobile, Orange and Vodaphone. These corporations variously are connected to the field of military equipment and armament, use prison labour, and are famous for readily collaborating with electronic policing by the secret services (now that widespread data-surveillance is well known) while not even stopping at financing Oxford university with its' extensive animal experimentation labs. This has already led to their interests being attacked in Berlin (T-Mobile's parent company*), Paris (Orange*), and Banbury (Vodaphone*).

For all above reasons it is always good to harm these corporations, structurally and economically, and then there is the issue of the antennae themselves radiating who knows how much harmfulness to nearby species. There were the publicised cases in Bristol even some years ago of a woman in Shirehampton who complained of the affects of an antenna put up on her high rise flatblock and later died from a brain tumor, while an antenna nicknamed The Tower of Doom was withdrawn from Staple Hill after cancer rates soared. Evidence has mounted up that prolonged use of mobile phones damages the immune system, decreases fertility, and causes brain tumors and cancers: especially in the young. We should mention that the antenna we burned in Coombe Dingle is one of three on the grounds of a university sports pitch also marketed for schools, as are many others. Additionally, twisted lab technicians claim to have deduced from experimentation on other mammals (built on torture like so much scientific research) that exposure while still in the womb "significantly damages brain function, structure and behaviour and suggested that these exposures could contribute to children's behavioural disorders".

These products were and still are pushed on us as harmless, although nearly every study that claims this was funded by the industry itself, when we had no idea of the long term affects, similarly to the marketing of asbestos or smoking before they began to show their deadly toll (to use only 2 better known examples among thousands). These days even researchers at Bristol university concede the dangers of cellular use. What a surprise….the permanently wired environment turns out to be toxic, while companies make a killing in profits and the government receives billions in taxes and licensing. For most people prolonged contact with mobile phones or wireless networks in general seems unavoidable, for work or to avoid social marginalisation, in the street, on public transport, or at home: we are soaking in one more accumulative barrage in a poisonous, anti-human and anti-life civilisation that grows by the day.

A recurring feature of the estrangement that technologies such as mobile phones actually cultivate between individuals, is how many addicted to their constant use now prefer to text message or to "tweet" to avoid the prospect of real life contact, and how many only feel safe communicating from behind a device. It is now completely standard for people to spend the majority of their waking hours interfacing with one screen or another. Up and coming inventions such as Google Glass attempt to make this enclosure near total (although also dependent in part on uninterrupted transmission infrastructure). As a society that lives through highly complex technologies, we no longer fully inhabit our bodies and environment but instead some part of the techno-hive: and it is no longer only nerds and the young who practically call this virtual reality their home. As the sphere dominated by information technology expands, what is considered socially of importance in our actual lives shrinks to what can be conveyed and received by the device, and so narrowing human emotion and experience. Or think about the obsessive urge to treat modern life as something less to be lived than to be documented in each detail for passive consumption on the "social" networks, as another example of colonisation by capitalism and its' technology.

Planning and carrying out your existence digitally also allows the possibilities of unprecedented surveillance, and it hinders active rebellion or even questioning of the dominant order by flagging up "abnormalities" in what you often voluntarily share with your friends or "Friends." At the same time, concerted exploitation of the base populations around the world and ecological pillage to the point of collapse continues to fatten the same rich parasites' pockets, and technological immersion helps people neither relate nor care. On the contrary millions now hunger for their part in the way of life that is killing everything.

With an anarchist perspective in search of free and fulfilling existence, we fight to do away with all technologies born from the toxification and slavery of mines, factories, and industrial infrastructures, and for our daily communication to be as unmediated as possible. Taking down these few nodes was not enough for us, it is not a case of simply abandoning the uses of a particular device alone, but it is erasing the whole social system which first trapped us in its' "necessity" which is the challenge. We found antennae an easy way to start: it is simply a matter of burning tires between the exposed cables and away you go. In North Lanarkshire, Scottish villagers even felled one. By reflecting on radical and anti-industrial history in Britain (such as the Swing and Luddite insurrections), as well as contemporary anarchist guerrilla praxis, we can see the advantage of low-tech, cheap, and easily reproducible tactics to wreck machinery that encloses and impoverishes us, on an even more intimate level presently than ever before. These ubiquitous (and highly expensive) structures are spread around every town or city and further industrialising the countryside, where they are sometimes painted green in the attempt to camouflage them: and disgustingly even have bird and bat nesting boxes mounted on some. Their guardians cannot always be watching them all so it is up to our ingenuity to remain a step ahead and stretch their forces thin. This and every network has its' weak points, in these cracks in the architecture of control that afford us leverage: a destructive capacity we are appropriating. As the promises of hyper-technified modern culture continue to show their shallowness, rebels will carry on acting against the noxious installations and the way of life they feed.

"….Resistance against the Technological-Industrial Machine lives only through the path of liberation from every power and order, runs towards an event horizon where nothing has been written yet." -letter from Gianluca Iacovacci, from C.R. San Michele prison

Our attack is not separate from overall anarchist subversion by all means, which naturally includes solidarity with our prisoners in enemy hands. A wild greeting from Bristol to Adriano Antonacci, no less than to his friend and comrade Gianluca (FAI/IRF Subversive Anti-Civilisation individuality) whose brave lone acts in Rome he is also accused of. Hello to the new anarchist and anti-colonial groups in Hong Kong and Australia, and solidarity to the Paris ten accused of sabotaging prison profiteers.

Our attack came at a time when the networks are already set to be overloaded by the World Cup hysteria, to show our complicity with the insurgent fighters in Brazil as they answer massive dispossession and militarised slum clearances for the opulence of the games with street battles and arson. Because it should be remembered that the enthralling spectacle, that is staged to make the rich yet more money and to distract us from our daily humiliations, is based on the State and Capital's violence against resisters, the indigenous, and the poorest in Brazilian society.

Let's not forget Marie Mason and Eric McDavid: both are still behind bars after State repression and entrapment which followed an early string of Earth Liberation Front strikes in the USA. Years later the earth liberation struggle is not defeated either in spirit or in practice. The fight goes on with fur farms raided and emptied across North America, and our incendiary-minded sisters or brothers prowling the besieged Turkish forests, the streets of the Costa Rican metropolis, or the techno-industrial developments in Switzerland (on the last note: a quick reminder that the continuing legal threats against the released anarchists Silvia, Costas and Billy, and also the latest vindictive treatment of Marco Camenisch around his prison transfer, have not gone unnoticed by the international fire-starters).

Down with the society based on dominating earth and all its' creatures. Live Wires, FAI/ELF
(14th contribution to the international Phoenix Project, one more part of a war that will never be contained by a legal code)

* http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net/2013/01/08/berlin-incendiary-attack-on-deutsche-telekom-vehicle-in-friedrichshain/
* http://nantes.indymedia.org/articles/28902
* http://www.directaction.info/news_mar12b_06.htm

Tourist Chains Himself to Icelandic Whaling Ship

anti_whaling_activist_hvalur8_026th June Update:

anti_whaling_activist_hvalur8_026th June Update: After 15 Hours Activist Ends Lockdown Due to Threats

A 32-year-old unnamed activist from Berlin from the organization Hard to Port chained himself to the mast of Icelandic whaling ship Hvalur 8 this morning and has declared that he will remain there for at least 48 hours in protest of whaling.

“Workers seem irritated. Collective brainstorming how to deal with me up here. First whale watching tourists stop by to take pictures and show support,” the activist posted on Facebook this morning.

Hard to Port released a statement to the media, explaining their intention to: “…raise awareness among potential tourists of Iceland worldwide of the cruel and unethical practice [of whaling].”

Hvalur 8 is docked at the shipyard in Reykjavík in preparation for the upcoming whaling season, which begins this month. The quota for fin whales is 154 animals and their hunting will result in significant work on sea and land, Morgunblaðið reports.

Former ELF Member Pleads Guilty to Arsons; Snitches on Friends for Reduced Sentence

liammulholland3 Tomorrow, May 5, 2014, Liam Mulholland will be sentenced for his involvement in a 2003 ELF arson.

liammulholland3 Tomorrow, May 5, 2014, Liam Mulholland will be sentenced for his involvement in a 2003 ELF arson.

Mulholland pleaded guilty to setting fire to a house at Mystic Forest housing development in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on March 21, 2003. Spray painted on the garage of a neighboring house were the words “ELF – No Sprawl.”

In Michigan, the mandatory minimum for this kind of property destruction is five years in prison. However, the government has requested a reduced sentence because of Mulholland’s “cooperation” with the federal government.

From his plea agreement and the Government’s Sentencing Memorandum, it seems Mulholland handed the feds a lot of information. He claimed involvement in several more ELF and ALF actions, including arsons that destroyed two homes at another housing development in Michigan in June of 2003; using incendiary devices to destroy chicken delivery trucks in Bloomington, Indiana in May of 2002; an arson at a housing development in Bloomington, Indiana in June of 2002; and a failed attempt to set fire to a pumping station in Stanwood, Michigan, in September of 2003.

Mulholland also provided feds with the names of the other activists with whom he carried out these actions—as well as where and how they traveled, where and when they planned and discussed their actions, what they purchased for the actions, how they disposed of the purchased items, and how they carried out each action.

The government is requesting a sentence of 18 months for Mulholland—a reduction of 42 months from the state’s mandatory minimum—because his cooperation will aid the government in cracking down on the other ELF and ALF suspects: “The government has determined that the defendant’s cooperation to date amounts to substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of others.”

Photo captured from Local 4 Defenders.

Photo captured from Local 4 Defenders.

The agreement also asserts that, because of his cooperation, all his charges related to the other admitted ELF and ALF arsons will be dismissed.

And it seems that Mulholland isn’t the only one snitching. The Sentencing Memorandum states that, though Mulholland often asserted that he was simply “along for the ride” during these actions, the feds have received contradictory information: “According to witnesses, it was the defendant who had the expertise to construct incendiary devices and did so for both the arson of the delivery trucks at Sim’s Poultry, as well as the attempted arson of the Ice Mountain pumping station.”

Stay tuned for more information after tomorrow’s sentencing hearing. If anyone has pictures of Liam Mulholland, or more information, please send them to collective [at] earthfirstjournal [dot] org, so that the word can be spread, and activists and activist groups can be on guard for the presence of this snitch.

For more information on snitches and informants, be sure to check out our online Informant Tracker.

Rabbit is an editor for the Earth First! Journal and Newswire. He can be reached at rabbit [at] earthfirstjournal [dot] org. If you appreciated reading this article, or want to support the informant tracking and prisoner support services, please consider subscribing or donating today.

Support the SOCPA 7

22nd April Over recent years there have been many attempts to stop UK activists protesting against Europe’s largest animal testing laboratory; Huntingdon Life Sciences. Activists have been arrested, raided, imprisoned and banned from taking part in the campaign.

22nd April Over recent years there have been many attempts to stop UK activists protesting against Europe’s largest animal testing laboratory; Huntingdon Life Sciences. Activists have been arrested, raided, imprisoned and banned from taking part in the campaign. Despite these attempts, SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) has been a groundbreaking campaign which has succeeded in almost bankrupting the multi-national corporation. Hundreds of companies have refused to deal with HLS after learning about the horrors happening to animals inside the torture lab – including some of the world’s largest business and financial institutions.

There is an ongoing battle taking place in the UK, with SHAC trying to shut down HLS and vested business and state interests trying to shut down SHAC. The desperation on the part of the state has lead to the introduction of new laws criminalising legitimate protest and the harassment and targeting of peaceful and lawful campaigners.

On 18th May 2012, three people were arrested in connection with a protest at a newly exposed supplier of Huntingdon Life Sciences. A fourth person was also arrested a few weeks later. The four were accused of SOCPA 145 (interfering with a contractual relationship so as to harm an animal research organisation) and SOCPA 146 (intimidation of persons connected with an animal research organisation). They were bailed with strict conditions, such as banning them from campaigning against HLS and ordering them to live and sleep only at designated addresses.

SOCPA 145 and 146 were introduced in 2005 to class even minor public order offences against vivisection as serious crimes and to enable higher sentencing of anti-vivisection protesters. An activist found guilty of a civil wrong whilst protesting against vivisection now faces up to 5 years imprisonment, whereas someone committing the same act in connection with another issue (anti-fascism, environmentalism etc) could expect to receive a small fine.

The four were rebailed numerous times over the next 8 months, although it is extremely bad practice (and fairly unusual) for the police to keep suspects on bail for such a prolonged period without reaching a decision. The delay behind this became apparent on Thursday 17th January 2013, when the four suspects and another two people, were raided and arrested – this time for “conspiracy” to commit SOCPA 145 and 146. This offence was allegedly in relation to SHAC and took place between October 2011 – June 2012, covering 25 incidents, including the protest the four suspects were already on bail for (which has now been dropped as an individual charge). All six were questioned and eventually bailed to return to the police station in April, again with strict conditions and this time banned from communicating with each other.

A seventh person was arrested in this case shortly afterwards and bailed along with the others.

During the raids, the policed forced entry to a number of properties, including those of the suspects’ partners and mistakenly, their neighbours. Many items were seized, including electronics and personal items unconnected to the case and belonging to both the defendants and other people living in the properties.

The most worrying aspect of this case is the lack of evidence of criminal activity against the defendants as individuals. As with previous cases, “conspiracy” is being used to group people together, without the need for evidence against them individually. During the police interviews they mentioned a number of protests against companies dealing with HLS (some of which the defendants were accused of attending), as well as direct action (although there is no suggestion or evidence that the defendants had any knowledge or involvement in this). Beneath the legal terminology, the only thing they’re accused of doing themselves, is taking part in protests.

This case is one of the most recent examples of the lengths the UK authorities are going to in their attempt to stop people campaigning against vivisection and especially HLS. When people are no longer able to attend a lawful protest without being accused of taking part in a criminal conspiracy, it is our responsibility to speak out.

 

In an atmosphere of increasing repression against activists and the criminalisation of effective campaigns, it is important that we show our solidarity for those involved and form a strong network to support the UK animal rights movement.

http://www.stopukrepression.org/

Hunt Saboteurs and Sea Shepherd force Gardenstown seal cull to be abandoned

April 22 2014 A major wild salmon producer has said it is giving up the culling of seals after protests at a harbour in the north east of Scotland.

The Montrose-based Scottish Wild Salmon Company claimed it had been confronted by activists at Gardenstown harbour.

April 22 2014 A major wild salmon producer has said it is giving up the culling of seals after protests at a harbour in the north east of Scotland.

The Montrose-based Scottish Wild Salmon Company claimed it had been confronted by activists at Gardenstown harbour.

The company said it was removing firearms from its operations, meaning only acoustic devices would be used to drive seals away from nets.

The protest group, Sea Shepherd, expressed "delight" at the news.

Police Scotland said it was monitoring the situation.

Violent Seal Killers Threaten Sea Shepherd UK Crew

SS April 21 2014 As predicted by Sea Shepherd on Good Friday, the killing team of the Scottish Wild Salmon Company escalated tensions in the Scottish seal killing grounds with an unprecedented attack on a member of Sea Shepherd U

SS April 21 2014 As predicted by Sea Shepherd on Good Friday, the killing team of the Scottish Wild Salmon Company escalated tensions in the Scottish seal killing grounds with an unprecedented attack on a member of Sea Shepherd UK’s campaign crew.

As residents of Gardenstown were preparing for breakfast on Easter Monday, Sea Shepherd crewmembers were already being threatened with violence by the Scottish Wild Salmon Company’s seal killers.

In a dramatic 8 a.m. confrontation which took place away from the Harbour in the town’s New Ground, three employees of the Scottish Wild Salmon Company, one carrying a rifle, cornered just one of our crewmembers, leaving him fearful of extreme violence.

 

The crewmember had the presence of mind to keep his camera running throughout, and the situation was saved when other members of the Sea Shepherd campaign crew arrived with their own cameras. Realizing that any further illegal acts on their part were being recorded, the thugs backed away and returned to their command base.

Sea Shepherd UK has now reported the situation and shown video footage to Police Scotland. Sea Shepherd UK is confident that charges can now be brought against the ringleader of the Scottish Wild Salmon Company’s out-of-control thugs.

Given the escalating situation, Sea Shepherd UK has now asked the Hunt Saboteurs Association to reactivate their undercover teams as well as introduce new covert operatives to the area. Other Sea Shepherd volunteers and specialist intervention teams are also now heading to Banffshire in order to defend Scottish seals from these violent people.

The Scottish government issues companies such as the Scottish Wild Salmon Company with licenses to shoot seals, which they claim threaten fish stocks. However the legislation requires that seals may only ever be shot as a last resort after all other methods of control have been applied. The actions of these companies themselves are drawing seals to the salmon. Seals in this area do not normally eat salmon, but when salmon netting companies trap wild fish in large numbers, it is only natural that the captured fish attract seals.  As we’ve seen with the sea lions on the Columbia River on the Oregon/Washington border here in the U.S., these animals are being targeted for the simple “crime” of eating fish.

The non-lethal solution is to deploy Acoustic Deterrent Devices (ADDs), which the Scottish Wild Salmon Company does have available to them.  Unfortunately, lethal bullets are cheaper than the non-lethal alternative, and so, without effective policing by Marine Scotland (the agency responsible for the seal killing licenses), it is left to Sea Shepherd to once again uphold national and international laws which governments neither can’t nor won’t enforce.

 

Japan’s Northwest Pacific Whale Killing Program Could Start Later This Month

Photo by Erwin Vermeulen April 18 2014 On March 31st, a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) served a devastating blow to Japan’s whaling industry.

Photo by Erwin Vermeulen April 18 2014 On March 31st, a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) served a devastating blow to Japan’s whaling industry. The court’s landmark ruling stated that the Japan whale Research Program in the Antarctic (JARPA II) was not conducted for the purposes of scientific research. It ordered that Japan revoke the scientific permits given under JARPA II and refrain from granting any further permits under that program.

In a blatant show of defiance of this ruling, Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) last week filed court briefs stating that they intend to return to slaughter whales in the Southern Ocean for the 2015-2016 season with a newly designed “research” program and will seek a permanent injunction against Sea Shepherd.

Another example of Japan’s complete disregard for the wishes of the international community could soon unfold as the Japan whale Research Program in the Northwest Pacific (JARPN II) is scheduled to start this month. According to a Japan Times article of April 17: “The Japanese whaling fleet’s departure for the Pacific Northwest has been delayed to April 26 instead of Tuesday 22nd” because of disagreements between the Foreign Ministry and the Fisheries Agency after the International Court of Justice last month ordered Japan to halt its annual “research” hunts in the Antarctic Ocean after ruling they are not scientific in nature. The Foreign Ministry is concerned that if Japan whales in the Northwest Pacific immediately after the ICJ ruling, anti-whaling countries may sue to halt hunts there as well. The Fisheries Agency insists that whaling in the Northwest Pacific should continue, but at a reduced target catch of 60 whales. The delay “might be a side effect of U.S. President Barack Obama’s planned three-day visit to Japan starting Wednesday.”

 

Although the ICJ ruling does not include JARPN II, as Australia and New Zealand’s case centered on “their” whales in their “backyard”, even the Japanese government realizes, according to a NHK World article of April 10, that “the court’s ruling could be applied to those waters depending on methods used, including the number caught.”

The article continues: “The concern is prompting the government to assess its research procedures. It plans to decide as early as next week whether to go ahead with research whaling in the Northwestern Pacific. Some in the government claim that it should conduct the Pacific research whaling as planned. But others argue that Japan could be sued again if it continues the program without due consideration to the court’s ruling.”

Immediately after the ICJ ruling, the spokesman for the Japanese delegation to the court, Nori Shikata said: “Our program in the Northern Pacific is outside the scope of the proceedings before the court, and so they are two separate programs and this ruling is about the program in the Antarctic,”

On April 15th, before a meeting with the president of the ICR, Japan’s Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed willingness to continue whaling in the Pacific despite the ICJ ruling. He said he is determined to “maintain the solid policy of preserving whale-eating culture and securing supply of whale meat.”

On that same date, Kyodo Senpaku, which owns Japan’s whaling fleet, said it had urged Agriculture Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi to allow the Northern Pacific whaling to take place as usual. “The minister gave us strong encouragement by saying that he would firmly consider it, given that the research itself was not gainsaid.”

Aside from the geographic region and the whales targeted, the JARPN and JARPA programs are identical twins when you look at their goal, construction and history. Thus a large part of the ICJ’s motivation for the ruling on Antarctic whaling can be directly applied to the Northwest Pacific slaughter:

  • A court would find no evidence of any studies of the feasibility or practicability of non-lethal methods, nor find evidence that Japan examined whether it would be feasible to combine a smaller lethal take and an increase in non-lethal sampling to achieve its research objectives.
  • As with the evaluation of JARPA (1988-2005) and JARPA II (2005-2014) by the ICJ, a court investigation of JARPN (1994-1999) and JARPN II (2000-present) will reveal a considerable overlap between the two programs’ subjects, their objectives, and their methods.
  • Both state identical goals such as improving knowledge on stock identity/structure and feeding ecology.
  • As with JARPA II, which called for a significant increase in the minke whale “sample” size and the lethal “sampling” of additional species (humpback and fin whales) compared to JARPA, the Northwest Pacific kill quota escalated from the killing of 100 common minke whales annually under JARPN to 100 common minke whales, 50 bryde’s whales, and 10 sperm whales under JARPN II. In 2002 they increased the minke whale quota to 150 and added 50 sei whales. The next year, the minke quota became 160 and the sei whale quota was doubled to 100. In 2008 the program proposal was an annual take of 340 minke whales, 50 bryde’s whales, 100 sei whales and 10 sperm whales.
  • The ICJ determined that weaknesses in Japan’s explanation for the decision to proceed with the JARPA II sample sizes prior to the final review of JARPA lend support to the view that those sample sizes and the launch date for JARPA II were not driven by strictly scientific considerations. The same applies to the transition from JARPN to JARPN II.
  • The ICJ noted that there were three additional aspects of JARPA II which cast further doubt on its characterization as a program for purposes of scientific research: the open-ended time frame of the program, its limited scientific output to date, and the lack of cooperation between JARPA II and other domestic and international research programs. All of these aspects apply to JARPN II.

 

Given these examples, it becomes clear that if JARPN II were under the scrutiny of the ICJ or any other court outside of a whaling nation, the conclusion of that court would sound much the same as in the case of JARPA II: “The Court concludes that the special permits granted by Japan for the killing, taking and treating of whales in connection with JARPA/N II are not ‘for purposes of scientific research’ pursuant to Article VIII, paragraph 1, of the Convention.”

As a result, Japan would have violated the moratorium not only in the Antarctic, but also in the Northwest Pacific.

Beyond all the legal talk, it is of course clear to every rational person that just as Japan’s Antarctic whale program is a disguise for commercial whaling, the same goes for the program in the North Pacific.

Still in the court’s ruling there is this sentence: “The Court finds that JARPA II can broadly be characterized as ‘scientific research’.” How “broadly” exactly do you want to go?

Science thrives on our thirst for knowledge. All valuable research starts with a question. With that question as a foundation, scientists build a research program that might provide them with answers.

Japan has no questions; they had to disguise their continuation of commercial whaling as science. Deciding on an outcome was easy: the resumption of commercial whaling. Then they defined the desired conclusions: “there are plenty of whales” and “these whales eat our fish.” As whales in Antarctica migrate South to feast on krill and not fish, they had to come up with something else there: “minke whales have become too abundant and threaten the recovery of the blue whale and therefore have to be culled.”

Calling this science, even broadly, is an obscenity.

An important point that some might forget in this day and age, where for many science has replaced the gods of old, is that just because something is called science, be it as a guise, truly so or just broadly, that in itself justifies absolutely nothing! We only have to look at what is done to animals in laboratories all around the world to realize that science often lacks ethics and morals. In the definition of the ICJ, probably even the experiments of Nazi doctors in WW II concentration camps could “broadly be characterized as ‘scientific research’.” That doesn’t make it all right…

Regarding JARPN II there is another disguise within the disguise of commercial whaling as science. When Japan in 1988, under US pressure, lifted its objection to the moratorium on commercial whaling, this also ended Japanese Small-Type Coastal Whaling (JSTCW) for minke whales, as minkes are one of the 13 species of larger whales that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). In response to the moratorium, four of the last nine JSTCW vessels from Abashiri (Hokkaido Prefecture), Ayukawa (Miyagi Prefecture), Wada (Chiba Prefecture) and Taiji (Wakayama Prefecture) stopped operating. The remaining ships continued killing short-finned pilot whales, Risso’s dolphins and Baird’s beaked whales in Japan’s coastal waters, as these “small cetaceans” are not covered by the IWC’s regulations.

Since 1987, Japan has tried to get a quota from the IWC to resume the killing of minke whales under a sort of aboriginal subsistence whaling scheme as exists for Alaskan Inuits, Northeast Siberian Chukchi, Greenlanders and for the natives of Bequia. The IWC has for all these years refused to grant a minke whale quota for JSTCW because they judge it to be a commercial proposal.

To get around this, the ICR added a coastal component to JARPN II in 2002. The ICR contracts Japan’s Small Type Whaling Association to provide vessels and crew to participate in whaling operations off Ayukawa, now part of Ishinomaki, (Miyagi prefecture) from April through May and off Kushiro (Hokkaido) in September and October to shoot 60 minke whales in each area. The ICR buys the whales from the whaling companies at a set price and then sells part of the meat at a subsidized price back to the JSTCW towns.

In this light, the ICR’s activities in the Northwest Pacific are an even bigger scam than those in Antarctica.

This is the hunt that is about to start on April 22nd, followed a month later by the offshore component that includes the last-of-its-kind floating abattoir, the Nisshin Maru and the familiar Yushins.

All this could just be underway before the annual meeting of the IWC scientific committee starting May 12 in Slovenia. The committee members are almost certain to question the legality of JARPN II in light of the ICJ ruling on JARPA II.

The international community cannot stand by and allow Japan to make a mockery out of its agreements and institutions. It’s time for the world’s leaders to pick up the phone and explain to Tokyo in no uncertain terms why they should keep their whaling ships in port

HSA fights Scottish Seal Cull in joint operation with Sea Shepherd

news-140417-1-2-Sea-Shepherd-UK-Taking-Action-to-Defend-Scottish-Seals-270w 18th April Members of the HSA have just returned from Scotland where they have been involved in

news-140417-1-2-Sea-Shepherd-UK-Taking-Action-to-Defend-Scottish-Seals-270w 18th April Members of the HSA have just returned from Scotland where they have been involved in stopping the shooting of seals by fishing companies.  They have been busy mapping the location of Salmon nets used by the Scottish Wild Salmon Company in, and around, Gamrie Bay, Aberdeenshire.  Since arriving in the area hunt saboteurs have ranged across the territory on foot locating seal kill zones from beaches, hillsides and treacherous cliff-top locations often in extreme weather conditions.  This vital information will enable Sea Shepherd to intervene between marksmen and the seals.

The Nets

Each year fishing companies in Scotland shoot up to 4000 seals under license from Natural Scotland to protect the wild salmon which they later kill for human consumption.
 
Lee Moon, Spokesperson for the HSA, stated:  "We are pleased to be working with Sea Shepherd and happy to utilise the skills we've aquired during the badger culls to carry out this invaluable work.  The mass murder of Scottish seals has been going on uninterrupted for far too long and we hope this will be the first of many such interventions by hunt saboteurs."
 
The Nets

‘If you don’t fight, you’ve already lost’: Animal rights activist facing six years in jail remains defiant

20140417_092540 April 17, 2014 from corporate watch Today Debbie Vincent, an animal

20140417_092540 April 17, 2014 from corporate watch Today Debbie Vincent, an animal rights activist from the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to blackmail after a five week long trial at Winchester Crown Court. She was also given an Anti Social Behaviour Order which means she can be arrested if she protests against or contacts Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) or its business partners for a further five years after her release from prison. The sentence should serve as a wake up call to anti-capitalists of the need to offer solidarity to those who have been singled out for repression because of their involvement in effective resistance to corporate power. A press release from the Blackmail 3 support campaign quotes Debbie: “I have been made an example of because I put myself up as a public face of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and for believing that such places as Huntingdon Life Sciences should be resigned to the history books.” “In some ways I’m really not surprised I was found guilty, as I don’t believe anyone can get justice when faced with a political conspiracy charge and the huge resources of the state and multinationals against me. I will always have hope and will always continue to try my best to make the inhabitants of this planet more compassionate to all and try to make the world a better place for all.” What we are seeing is a coordinated campaign against animal rights activists in an effort to silence dissent,” said Adrian Shaw of the Blackmail 3 Support Campaign. “This is the third conspiracy to blackmail trial in the UK involving people accused of campaigning against Huntingdon Life Sciences.” Corporate Watch spoke to Debbie prior to the sentencing. She said: “What is scary in this world is oppression and injustice, when people hurt people, animals and nature. What is beautiful in this world is resistance, when people say 'enough is enough' and act. Oppression and injustice are everywhere, but so is resistance. Because some people know that if you fight you might lose, but if you don't fight, you've already lost.” The campaign SHAC was set up in 1999 with the aim of closing down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). HLS is one of the largest contract testing companies in the world. They keep about 70,000 animals on site at their lab in Huntingdon. According to SHAC, “HLS will test anything for anybody. They carry out experiments which involve poisoning animals with household products, pesticides, drugs, herbicides, food colourings and additives, sweeteners and genetically modified organisms. Every three minutes an animal dies inside Huntingdon totalling 500 innocent lives every single day.” SHAC's tactics have been groundbreaking for direct action campaigns in their targeting of the network of companies with business relationships with HLS: from its customers to its service providers and from its suppliers to its investors. To read an analysis of the SHAC model of campaignining click here. Over the years SHAC has published details of the companies doing business with HLS on its website and has encouraged people to persuade these companies to cease their business with HLS. The SHAC website is clear that it is not encouraging people to break the law. SHAC contacts the companies and tells them that they will remain listed on its website until they cease doing business with HLS. Hundreds of companies have ceased trading with HLS. View a list here. HLS have been infiltrated and their practices exposed several times. To read undercover exposes of animal abuse at HLS click here. The arrests of the 'Blackmail 3' In June 2012 European arrest warrants were issued in the UK for two activists in Holland, who will be referred to as SH and NS in this article. On 6th July 2012 Debbie Vincent, who had been targeted by the police for many years for her involvement in the SHAC campaign, was arrested and detained on suspicion of conspiracy to blackmail. Her home address was searched. On the same day SH and NS were arrested and premises in Amsterdam were searched. Debbie was charged in July 2012 with conspiracy to blackmail, an offence under the 1977 Criminal Law Act. The British police have sought the extradition of the Dutch activists and the Dutch courts granted it. However, until now there is an ongoing dispute over the extradition as the lawyers for one of the Dutch defendants have demanded an undertaking from the British Secretary of State that he would serve his sentence in Holland if he was convicted. The charge placed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) against Debbie was conspiring with 16 named people, including the two Dutch activists, and unnamed others “to blackmail representatives of companies and businesses and other persons” “by making unwarranted demands, namely to cease lawful trading with HLS, with menaces and with intent to cause loss to another.” The 13 other 'co-conspirators' have already been jailed for conspiracy to blackmail, at trials in 2009 and 2010 for a total of almost 70 years between them. For many of them the only evidence presented was involvement in lawful campaigning against the company and association with those involved in direct action. The use of the charge of blackmail against Debbie is another example of the twisting of the law to repress grassroots dissent against powerful corporations. Blackmail? The events relied on in Debbie's case were that in 2008 and 2009 actions were carried out in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland against Novartis, EuroNext, Schering Plough, BDO, AstraZeneca, Fortress and Nomura, all companies with business relationships with HLS. The actions included setting fire to directors' cars, company buildings and, in one case, the holiday hunting lodge of Daniel Vasella, Director of Novartis. Graffiti was daubed on directors' homes overnight and the ashes of Vasella's mother were stolen from the family tomb. However, in the words of Michael Bowes QC, the prosecutor in the case: “There is no evidence that Ms Vincent was present at the scene of any of the attacks, or incidents in Europe. There is no evidence that she was outside of the United Kingdom at the time of any of these attacks”. Instead the Crown Prosecution 'Service' (CPS) claimed that Debbie was guilty of involvement in a 'conspiracy to blackmail' involving those actions. The CPS claimed that there was evidence linking SH and NS to some of these actions. However they were not the ones in the dock. The prosecution argued that Debbie had been in phone contact with SH and NS and had attended the 2009 Animal Rights gathering in Oslo that they also attended. But the case went much further than that. The CPS argued that the SHAC campaign itself, in publishing details of companies on their website and encouraging people to protest against them, was guilty of blackmail. The effects of this legal 'logic' have broad implications for anti-corporate activists. For example, during the movement against apartheid in South Africa activists published details of companies like Barclays Bank and encouraged people to protest against them until they pulled out of South Africa. Was this an act of blackmail? Do campaign groups who publish the names and addresses of companies involved in fracking and encourage people to protest against them run the risk of convictions for blackmail? Is activist security a crime? The CPS's case summary says that “Debbie Vincent has taken steps to conceal her criminality by the use of encrypted computers (she has failed to provide the encryption codes despite being known to have been using a totally encrypted computer shortly before it was seized). Encrypted storage media was found hidden behind the kickboard of kitchen units at her address”. In highlighting this, the prosecutors were implying to the jury that Debbie had something to hide. The implication that the taking of lawful steps to protect privacy in the context of a concerted police campaign to monitor, criminalise, arrest and imprison activists seems laughable. However, it is a well rehearsed argument in animal rights cases. The set-up The prosecution had evidence that Debbie had contacted the directors of Novartis after the direct action against the company had taken place. However, they had no evidence linking Debbie to the direct action itself apart from the circumstantial links to NS and SH. In order to try and strengthen their case, the police worked with Novartis to try to entrap Debbie and another SHAC activist (who was also arrested but had his charges dropped, he will be referred to in this article as 'X') into admitting links to the robbing of the Vasella grave. SHAC had emailed Novartis, requesting that they cease dealing with HLS. Andrew Jackson, Global Head of Corporate Security at Novartis, replied and requested a meeting with the campaign. Jackson said that this meeting would be to discuss the issues raised in the email from the campaign. Debbie and the other activist arranged to meet representatives of Novartis at the Le Meridien Hotel in Piccadilly on 10th March 2010. Unknown to them, the company had arranged with the police to bug the meeting, and one of the people they were due to meet was an undercover officer, using the alias 'James Adams', who was masquerading as a Special Contracts Manager for Novartis. The activists were swept for bugs at the beginning of the meeting and each time they went to the toilet. They were told that the meetings were strictly confidential. After the meeting Adams got in touch with SHAC again and said that “certain things are outside the parameters of the dialogue” and asked Debbie and 'X' to set up another meeting, encouraging them to communicate with him via PGP email encryption. 'Adams' was eager to communicate directly with Debbie and 'X' rather than through the campaign. The clear intention was to coax the activists into offering to secure the return of the Vasella remains. Throughout the discussions in the meetings with Novartis, Debbie was clear that SHAC had no idea who took the remains and had no control over them. 'Adams', the undercover officer, took the lead during the conversations with Debbie. According to Debbie, he asked “leading questions about whether we were the right people” to talk to. Debbie's notes of the conversation record her as saying: “We're taking a risk the way the legal system is in this country to meet with you… [X] and I are painfully aware that going to these meeting with Novartis puts us in the spotlight, puts us at risk…" A representative of Novartis then says: "This is a confidential process…" In a later email to the company, Debbie said that she had spoken to some of the activists conducting demonstrations against Novartis and confirmed that they had agreed to stop protesting should Novartis end its contract with HLS. Soon after the second meeting with Novartis Debbie met 'James Adams' on the underground, as if by chance. In fact he had followed her onto the train. He tried to broach the issue of the Vasella remains again but Debbie refused to discuss the issue. Targeting of activists by political police units The arrest and prosecution of Debbie, and cases against animal rights activists more generally, are overseen by specialised political police units designed to protect corporations from public anger. In 1999 the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) was set up following the publication of a Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies report, which claimed that some protest groups “have adopted a strategic, long-term approach to their protests, employing new and innovative tactics to frustrate authorities and achieve their objectives”. The NPOIU has been responsible for planting undercover officers in protest movements. Debbie regards the use of undercover officers against her as a “sting operation”. She said she believed that Adams was “clearly part of National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit”, formerly the National Domestic Extremism Unit, “who are just a re-branding of the Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit” and that “there is now a 25 year history of unaccountable practice by a secretive and unaccountable police unit”. Specialised political police units aim to criminalise and imprison activists and neutralise political movements that pose a challenge to corporate power or other aspects of the current system. 'Decapitating' the 'leaders' The strategy of the police units involved in overseeing Debbie's case is explored in the January 2013 edition of the European Journal of Criminology. It includes an article by John Donovan and Richard Timothy Coupe. Donovan is employed by the Metropolitan Police 'Service'. The article encapsulates the police and CPS's approach to the SHAC campaign as one of “leadership decapitation”: “Police agencies combating terrorist or organised crime groups principally employ intelligence-led activities (Innes et al., 2005) and covert investigative techniques for identifying group participants and linking them to criminal activities. These involve human surveillance, informants and under-cover officers, as well as covert, electronic techniques, including wire-tapping, to monitor incriminating communications and understand member roles and ties in criminal networks, such as the Neapolitan Camorra (Campana, 2011; Campana and Varese, 2012). As well as the arrest of members of terrorist groups who commit or plan crimes, leaders and upper echelons have been specifically targeted in order to ‘decapitate’ and weaken or terminate groups (Cronin, 2009; David, 2002; Jordan, 2009; Price, 2012), an approach still emphasised in counter-insurgency doctrine (Hauenstein, 2011). This was the approach adopted by UK police in seeking to disrupt and terminate SHAC’s campaign of intimidation.” The CPS's case summary claimed that Debbie was the representative of SHAC in the UK. Alistair Nisbet, the Senior Crown Prosecutor in the case, said: “Following the conviction of SHAC’s main leaders in 2008, Debbie Vincent’s role within the organisation grew. She became the public face of SHAC”. Of course, the police's notions of leaders within the SHAC campaign betray a fundamental lack of understanding of horizontal organising by protest movements. Nevertheless, this tactic of painting individuals as leaders and targeting them is the strategy behind the police efforts to railroad Debbie and other activists to prison; an organised attempt by the police to neutralise a political protest movement through the twisting of the law to imprison those who the authorities label as 'leaders'. Media greenscare So why aren't more people rallying to support Debbie and other SHAC campaigners? One reason is the police's attempts to discredit the movement in the media and thus to limit public solidarity for those under their cosh. In the past, mainstream media scare-stories about animal rights and environmental campaigners have been found to have been fabricated by political police units – see here. During Debbie's case the media coverage was deeply offensive, defamatory and discriminatory, focusing on the fact that Debbie had undergone gender reassignment. The Mirror's headline was “The boy who grew up to become a woman of terror” while the Daily Mail ran with “Sex-change soldier who became an animal rights terror commander” and made the unsubstantiated claim that Debbie had “been attacking animal testing labs for over ten years”. Debbie has already made a successful claim to the Press Complaints Commission and forced the Mail to amend an article which erroneously linked her to the Animal Liberation Front and linked SHAC to a previous blackmail case against the Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs campaign. This defamation in the press is undoubtedly stirred up by police press releases, aimed at generating a negative image of animal rights campaigners in the media in order to limit public support for the movement. It is of utmost importance that anti-corporate campaigners are not taken in by this spin, which is designed to protect corporate profits, and to stand in solidarity with those experiencing repression. Protecting corporations from dissent Pharmaceutical companies that are facing public anger over their activities have seized on Debbie's conviction to further restrict protest outside their premises. After the verdict in the trial, Novartis applied for a strengthened injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act (PHA) of 1997 against animal rights protesters. It was granted on 14 April 2014. The harsh terms of the injunction were requested, by notorious corporate lawyer Timothy Lawson Cruttenden, on the grounds that there could be a “backlash that occurs after the sentence”. The PHA Act was drafted and made its way through parliament as a provision designed to protect vulnerable people from harassment. Before the law was passed, the media had been evoking emotional accounts of the effect of stalking and the need to protect vulnerable individuals. The Act was never portrayed as a law designed to protect corporations and restrict protest. Yet, that's exactly what its being used for. The new conditions put in place by Novartis are an interim measure and will be examined at another court hearing. The interim injunction has been made against 'persons unknown' but potentially affects anyone demonstrating against Novartis. It restricts demonstrations to six people or fewer, in designated protest zones, with no amplified sounds, and forbids face-coverings or blood-splattered costumes. Anyone deemed to have breached the conditions can be arrested and may face up to five years in prison. However, last year a test case at the Old Bailey of two SHAC activists put into question the practicality of prosecuting activists arrested under PHA injunctions. See this Corporate Watch article for details of the case. Solidarity needed Debbie's conviction is part of an ongoing campaign of repression against the UK animal rights movement. A further seven SHAC activists have been charged with 'conspiracy to interfere with the contractual relations so as to harm an animal research organisation' under Section 145 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005). The charges relate to demonstrations against companies with business relationships with HLS. They are due to appear in court later this year. For more information on the ongoing repression of UK animal rights activists see the website: www.stopukrepression.org When we asked Debbie if she would need any particular support from people if she got a custodial sentence, she replied: “Practically, I'm not sure what my needs will be in prison, it will depend to a degree to where I go. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to cope, but being isolated from nature and friends will be the worst part. I will try to make the best of the bad situation, it's all a bit daunting and new. The whole charge and court case are still amazingly surreal.” “Keep on campaigning against all oppression and capitalist domination. Don't be afraid to speak out and never apologise for trying to make a difference and caring.” To see a list of imprisoned animal rights activists worldwide click here. Update: We have just heard that Debbie has been taken to Bronzefield Prison. Her prisoner number should be available soon.