Press release - June 24, 2008
Two Greenpeace Japan activists, arrested last Friday for exposing an embezzlement ring at the heart of the Japanese government's so-called scientific whaling programme have been ordered to spend a further nine days in jail without charge , after an appeal for them to be released was rejected by a court in Aomori.
The case of the Tokyo Two - Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki - has
gained global attention. In the last four days nearly 100,000
people have sent protest letters, calling for their immediate
release, to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, and the Foreign Minister,
Masahiko Koumura via Japanese embassies in 28 countries.
The letter reads:
"I am writing to protest, in the strongest terms, the
arrest of Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki for exposing a whale meat
smuggling ring. These activists are innocent of any crime. They
have returned a box of whale meat stolen from Japanese taxpayers.
They have openly cooperated with police in returning the whale meat
and presented a full dossier on how it was obtained. As a result of
the evidence they presented, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor
began an investigation into allegations of embezzlement involving
smuggled whale meat which raise serious questions about the scale
and extent of the abuse of taxpayers' money by the operators of the
Southern Ocean whaling programme. Arresting the activists who have
exposed this scandal is not acceptable, and suggests that the
corruption that they called to the world's attention runs deep in
the Japanese government. It is an essential principle of democracy
that those who act to expose wrongdoing in government should not be
subject to intimidation or harassment, no matter how powerful the
forces they oppose. Please, release the activists and pursue the
criminals."
"While the two are being detained without charge, government
officials from the Fisheries Agency of Japan are attending the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Chile where it is seeking
to end whale conservation by calling for a return to commercial
whaling, it is even threatening to leave the IWC if it does not get
its way," said Greenpeace Japan Executive Director Jun
Hoshikawa.
"The world is protesting the continued unnecessary detention of
Sato and Suzuki. This case and Japan's behaviour at the IWC casts a
long shadow over democracy as the country prepares for the G8
meeting. Prime Minister Fukuda promised leadership at the G8 that
should be an example of how to create a better world. That process
must begin now, by stopping the intimidation of peaceful protestors
who have only acted to expose environmental crimes and ending the
drive to return to commercial whaling," concluded Hoshikawa.
Other contacts: In New Zealand:
Bunny McDiarmid - Greenpeace Executive Director – 021 838 183
Greg McNevin - Greenpeace Communications Officer - 021 577 556
Internationally:
Keiko Shirokawa: Greenpeace Japan Media, in Tokyo: + 81 90 3470 7884
Mike Townsley, Greenpeace International, in Amsterdam: +31 621 296 918
Dave Walsh, Greenpeace International, at the IWC in Chile, +56 9 939 2952
Notes: In May, a four-month undercover investigation by Greenpeace in Japan revealed evidence of an embezzlement ring involving crew members on board the Nisshin Maru - the fleets factory ship onboard which the whales killed in the name of science are chopped and boxed for market.
It provided evidence that crew were openly taking the best cuts of whale meat and smuggling them ashore disguised as personal luggage and then passing it on to the traders for illegal sale.
Greenpeace obtained one of the boxes, for which the paper work had been falsified claiming the contents as "cardboard" but it in fact contained
23.5 kgs of prime cut whale meat worth up to US$3,000. In total 47 suspicious boxes were identified by Greenpeace. That box was presented as evidence to the Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office on May 8.
Informers told Greenpeace that senior crew and officials from Kyodo Senpaku - the company operating the fleet and the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) were turning a blind eye to the theft, allowing it to continue for decades.
The "Stolen Japanese Whale Meat Scandal" dossier is available to download in English and Japanese at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/whale-meat-scandal
The peaceful actions of the crew of the Greenpeace ship, Esperanza, in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary earlier this year stopped the entire whaling operation for more than two weeks. The factory ship, Nisshin Maru returned to port with half the planned quota of minke whales and no endangered fin whales. The whalers were forced to admit that previous claims that fin whale numbers were increasing was not proved by the expedition -in which so few fin whales were seen they were unable to catch any.