Verdict Handed Down for Six Sea Shepherd Volunteers on Faroe Islands

9.9.14

Vol­un­teers from Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s pilot whale defense cam­paign Oper­a­tion Grind­Stop 2014 appeared before a court in the Faroe Islands on Mon­day fol­low­ing their recent arrest in con­junc­tion with try­ing to pre­vent the mur­der of pilot whales. These vol­un­teer crewmem­bers – many of whom are Euro­pean cit­i­zens – have been found guilty of defend­ing the whales, while Den­mark has act­ed in bla­tant defi­ance of Euro­pean Union reg­u­la­tions by defend­ing the slaugh­ter of whales. Sea Shep­herd has issued a state­ment per­tain­ing to the ver­dicts and sup­port­er and actor Mar­tin Sheen is speak­ing out.

The six mem­bers of Sea Shepherd’s onshore team were among a total of 14 vol­un­teers arrest­ed on August 30 on the Faroese island of San­doy for attempt­ing to pro­tect 33 pilot whales from the bru­tal mass slaugh­ter known as “grindadrap” or the “grind.” The onshore crewmem­bers entered the water, bang­ing poles, in an attempt to lead the pilot whales back out to sea and out of dan­ger, but as the pod was dri­ven in quick­ly from close to shore, there was lit­tle time to pre­vent the slaugh­ter. The Roy­al Dan­ish Navy arrest­ed Sea Shepherd’s off­shore crew and seized three of their small boats – the Loki, the Mike Gale­si, and the B.S. Sheen (spon­sored by actor Char­lie Sheen). Despite being an anti-whal­ing EU mem­ber nation, Den­mark act­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the whalers, enabling 33 whales to be killed.

The onshore crewmem­bers face small fines as well as pos­si­ble depor­ta­tion from the Faroes by Den­mark. The court date for the eight mem­bers of the off­shore crew has been sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 25, and Sea Shepherd’s three small boats will be held “as evi­dence” until that time.

Read more at SeaShepherd.org