Greenpeace Canada Executive Director Bruce Cox at the Japanese Embassy presenting boxes filled with mugshots of Canadians ‘Charged with Defending the Whales’.
Bruce Cox had his unofficial "mug shot" taken outside the embassy in Ottawa before being turned away by security. A similar drama played out today in Japan where the executive directors of Greenpeace offices from Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, Brazil, USA and the Nordic countries went to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso to call for an end to the Japanese government-funded whale hunt in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
At the center of the political storm are Greenpeace activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki. In May, Greenpeace Japan discovered that large amounts of whale meat were being disguised as personal baggage and smuggled from a "scientific" whaling vessel. Labelled "cardboard" or "salted stuff," the packages were addressed to the private homes of crewmembers. Sato and Suzuki intercepted one outgoing box and discovered it contained whale meat valued at roughly US $3,000 and took it to the authorities.
Their news conference drew national attention in Japan, and a promise by the Tokyo public prosecutor to "fully investigate" the charges. Instead, Sato and Suzuki were arrested a month later and held 28 days in custody. Police officers raided the Greenpeace Japan office and the homes of five staff, taking mobile phones, documents and computers. The investigation into the whale meat scandal was dropped.
"My colleagues in Japan were arrested for their efforts to stop Japanese whaling, and if that is a crime, then lock me up because there is no place for commercial whaling in the 21st century," said Cox. "The sham scientific whaling they are doing should be on trial, not the activists who exposed the illegal embezzlement occurring within the whaling industry."
Amnesty International has expressed "deep concern" at the situation and suggested the charges against Sato and Suzuki were politically motivated and "aimed at intimidating both activists and non-governmental organizations."
Activists from Australia, Australia, USA, New Zealand, Argentina, France, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Mexico and Italy also declared themselves 'co-defendants' today, the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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