Press release - July 13, 2011
Auckland 13, July, 2011 – Greenpeace today condemned Japan’s ongoing disregard for international human rights law, following the Sendai High Court’s decision to uphold convictions handed down to anti-whaling activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki.
The decision comes in spite of an official admission of wrongdoing by the Fisheries Agency of Japan in December 2010, and strong evidence supporting the activists’ allegations of criminal embezzlement.
Known as the Tokyo Two, Sato and Suzuki were convicted of “theft and “trespass” (1) by the Aomori District Court in September 2010, after they exposed broad scale embezzlement in Japan’s whaling industry, The court rejected all of the arguments presented by the defence, upheld the unjust convictions handed down by the Aomori court, and gave no clear reasoning for its decision.
“The court did not acknowledge that the substantial evidence showing the occurrence of embezzlement, and it did not take the right to investigate and criticise such practices into proper consideration,” said Junichi Sato, defendant and Greenpeace Japan Executive Director.
“Above all, the court did not take into account the damning admission by the Fisheries Agency of Japan, and its apology for its officials’ acceptance of expensive, illegal whale meat gifts from the fleet operators (2) – in quantities far greater than we were convicted of taking.”
“We have proven our case and the FAJ has admitted wrongdoing, yet we are still being punished for standing up to corruption, while those behind the real crime walk free,” said Sato.
“For too long bureaucrats have had very cosy relationships with destructive industries, and as
we have seen with the IWC vote buying scandals (3) and TEPCO’s single-page nuclear meltdown response plan for Fukushima Daiichi (4), both have had severely negative effects on the environment, the people and the economy.”
“The Government can no longer ignore the embezzlement we exposed. It must fully investigate the whale meat scandal, finally end its support for the expensive, unwanted and unneeded whaling programme, and put the money wasted on it into recovering from the March 11 disaster, and rebuilding sustainable fishing communities along the East coast.”
Sato called on the International Whaling Commission, which has started its 63rd annual meeting, in Jersey, to end commercial whaling.