Closures, resignations and cancelled celebrations - Japan's whaling program in disarray

"These cracks in the wall of the Japanese whaling industry show the importance of Greenpeace's work in Japan that uncovered corruption within the whaling industry earlier this year," said Greenpeace whales campaigner Reece Turner.

The whaling industry's top whale meat shop and restaurant, Yushin in Asakusa, Tokyo will close due to ongoing financial problems, the Japanese government-run Institute for Cetacean Research and whaling fleet operator Kyodo Senpaku announced yesterday. [1]

Sources inside the whaling industry also report that for the first time the taxpayer-funded whaling fleet will not be 100% Japanese-crewed, due to the resignation of many crew members following the recent whale meat embezzlement scandal exposed by Greenpeace in May 2008 [2].

Greenpeace has also received reports of the potential cancellation of the high-profile ceremony in the whaling fleet's home port of Shimonoseki, which normally marks the departure of the whalers for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The whaling fleet is expected to depart later this week.

This series of embarrassments follow last month's deflagging of the whaling fleet's refuelling and cargo ship, Oriental Bluebird [3], after being ruled in violation of a number of domestic and international regulations by Panamanian authorities. Without a replacement vessel the whaling fleet can only take half the intended quota of 1000 whales.

Greenpeace's campaign to end whaling in the Southern Ocean has increasingly focused on the authorities in Tokyo, where 71% of the public do not support Japan's whaling programme. As a result of the Greenpeace investigation into embezzlement of whale meat from the factory ship Nisshin Maru, Japanese authorities mounted a politically motivated prosecution of two Greenpeace activists.

Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, known as the Tokyo Two, have been denied their liberty for 145 days, since exposing the corruption. They will be put on trial early next year, and face up to 10 years in jail for intercepting whale meat stolen by crew from the whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru [3].

Amnesty International has protested the arrest as politically motivated, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee has severely reprimanded the Japanese government for the "unreasonable restrictions placed on freedom of expression" in Japan. (4)

"Most Australians would like to see the Australian government continue to be a strong leader against Whaling in the Southern Ocean," said Turner. "The Australian government should call for a full investigation of the whale meat scandal at the International Whaling Commission. There is strong evidence that Japan has violated international law in its treatment of these peaceful activists, and international pressure is needed to stop  the persecution of citizens who expose corruption in the whaling industry."