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Greenpeace Whale volunteers hand over 10,000 paper origami whales to Nobuhiro Oiwa from the Consul and Police Attache of the Japanese Consulate. A list of over 40,000 people who signed the online origami whale petition was also presented.
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First school children around Australia were inspired by our campaign to send us nearly 10,000 handmade paper origami whales – which came in all colours and sizes. Then, over the last month, more than 40,000 people joined our online campaign with The Daily Telegraph and Adelaide Advertiser to make their own "virtual" origami whale.
Greenpeace also used the opportunity to send a strong message to the Japanese government that there must be justice for the two Greenpeace activists who have been detained without charge for 10 days.
Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki from Greenpeace Japan had intercepted boxes of whale meat which were being illegally taken from the whaling program by crew members and sold on the black market. The activists had presented the case before public prosecutors in Tokyo and asked for a transparent investigation of the scandal.
IWC meeting and Senate motion
The 60th International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting, which just concluded in Chile, achieved nothing to stop Japan from killing more whales in the Southern Ocean this year. As a show of good faith during the time that the working group for reforming the IWC meets, Japan should not hunt whales in the Southern Ocean under the sham scientific whaling program.
The Australian delegation, led by Peter Garrett, made it clear that they will not compromise on their no whaling stand. But back home, the Rudd Government is still yet respond to a call from the Senate asking it to press Japan to investigate the scandal Greenpeace has exposed at the heart of the so-called scientific whaling program. In the motion passed last week, the Senate also called on the government to ask Japan to either release the activists immediately, or to put them on trial.
Japan needs to listen
Today, Greenpeace activists and the crew of the anti-whaling ship, Esperenza, handed the 50,000 origami petitions over to the Consulate of Japan in Sydney. Activists stood outside the consul holding messages that read “Justice for Greenpeace … Justice for the Whales”.
To save the whales and to protect those who work for them, the Australian government needs to speak out, in the same way that 50,000 citizens have. To ensure that the whales have a future, the powers that be in Japan need to listen to people’s voices from around the world.
