Japan asks Denmark to extradite anti-whaling activist Paul Watson
Denmark announced Thursday that it has received Japan's extradition request for anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, who was arrested in Greenland last month on an international arrest warrant. Watson, the 73-year-old founder of Sea Shepherd, is facing charges related to a 2010 confrontation with Japanese whaling ships, raising concerns over his potential extradition and the motivations behind Japan's request.
Issued on: 01/08/2024 - 
By:NEWS WIRES
Denmark's justice ministry said Thursday that it had received Japan's extradition request for anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, who was detained in Greenland last month on an international arrest warrant.
Watson, the 73-year-old American-Canadian founder of the Sea Shepherd activist group, was arrested on July 21 in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, over a 2010 altercation with Japanese whaling ships.
Watson, who featured in the reality TV series "Whale Wars", founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF), and is known for direct action tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea.
"The Ministry of Justice received a formal extradition request regarding Paul Watson from the Japanese authorities yesterday," the ministry told AFP in an email.
It said it would forward the case to Greenland police, "unless the ministry on the present basis finds grounds to reject the extradition request beforehand".
If the case is forwarded to Greenland police, they will investigate "whether there is basis for extradition", including whether it is in accordance with the extradition act applicable to Greenland, the ministry said.
But the ultimate decision on Watson's extradition will be made by Denmark's justice ministry, it added.
A custody hearing will be held in Greenland on August 15, pending a Danish decision on the extradition request.
'Personal vendetta'
Watson was arrested after arriving in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, when the ship John Paul DeJoria docked to refuel.
The vessel was on its way to "intercept" a new Japanese whaling factory vessel in the North Pacific, according to the CPWF.
One of the activist's lawyers, Francois Zimeray, said he was "not surprised" by the extradition request.
"Japan has a personal vendetta against Paul Watson, and this so-called offence is the pretext for revenge against a man who defied and therefore humiliated them," Zimeray told AFP.
He said an extradition to Japan would be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, since "the country does not respect international standards on fair trials and prisons."
Watson was arrested on the basis of an Interpol "Red Notice" issued in 2012, when Japan accused him of causing damage and injury to one of its whaling ships in the Antarctic two years earlier.
He faces a charge of causing injury, which can carry up to 15 years in prison or a fine of up to 500,000 yen ($3,300).
He also faces a charge of forcible obstruction of business, which carries a penalty of up to three years in prison or a fine up to 500,000 yen.
Japan is one of only three countries in the world to permit commercial whaling, along with Iceland and Norway.
'No regrets'
Watson's wife on Thursday appealed to Denmark's King Frederik X and Queen Mary to secure his release.
"Please, Denmark, release Paul!" Yana Watson posted on Facebook, posting pictures of him with their two young sons.
"He has diabetes Type 1. Japanese prison will be lethal for him," she said.
Earlier this week, the head of the French branch of Sea Shepherd said Watson did not regret his actions despite the risk of extradition.
"Paul is doing well, he is in good spirits. He has no regrets," Lamya Essemlali said in a statement after visiting Watson in custody on Monday.
French President Emmanuel Macron's office has asked Danish authorities not to extradite Watson, who has lived in France for the past year.
Read moreFrance urges against anti-whaling activist Watson's extradition to Japan
A French online petition urging Macron to demand Watson's liberation has garnered more than 675,000 signatures, while another Sea Shepherd France petition urging Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen not to extradite Watson had almost 27,000 signatures as of Thursday.
Famed environmentalist and primatologist Jane Goodall has also called for his release, saying he was "simply taking action to try to prevent the inhumane practice of killing whales, which most countries have banned decades ago".
(AFP)
Paul Watson Nabbed in Greenland
Photo taken by Don Kimball outside the German Consulate in NYC in 2011 demanding Captain Watson’s release.
Captain Paul Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace and the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS), has been in jail in Nuuk, Greenland for over a week, after federal police from Copenhagen, Denmark boarded his vessel, the John Paul Dejoria, while it attempted to dock and refuel enroute to the Northwest Passage. Its mission was to intercept the new long-range Japanese whaler Kanjei Maru. Sailing under the flag of St. Kitts, Watson, an American-Canadian Citizen, and his crew of 25 volunteers were swarmed by 14 Danish SWAT team officers as they took the captain away in handcuffs on an arrest warrant from the Japanese government.
Watson, an environmental and animal rights icon and star of the Animal Planet TV series “Whale Wars”, speaking on Monday, July 29 from his cellblock in Nuuk where he is being held without bail, said there are no problems in the cellblock that he shares with 9 other prisoners. Watson noted that eight, of them were Inuit, the indigenous peoples who are the majority of the population of Greenland, and have been inhabiting the island since 2000 BCE. When questioned why Japan would go to such lengths to have him arrested and detained he called the charges, “politically motivated”, and that, “he embarrassed Japan, and this is their revenge.”
For years, under Watson’s iron hand and steel will, the SSCS fleet of converted cargo ships and trawlers, equipped with a helicopter, harassed illegal Japanese whaleling operations in the Antarctic Ocean. Watson said the whalers harpooned as many as 6,500 whales for what the Japanese call “scientific experiments”. Watson has lawyers working his case from all over the world, including one from France where he lives (in a boat of course) on the Seine River with his wife and child. Watson lamented that he would have had a first class seat for the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, if it hadn’t been for Danish cooperation is apprehending him on trumped-up charges of conspiracy to trespass on a Japanese whaler, or something akin to elevated-aggravated teasing. He also said that additional frivolous charges may be forthcoming from the scary samurai’s of the sea.
Watson believes that Japan wants to “shut him up”, and not just about their illegal whaling operations, but for his outspoken criticism about the continued failures by the Japanese government and the corporation TEPCO after the nuclear disaster there in 2011. Clean-up costs have already surpassed $200 billion according to the National Institute of Health’s, National Library of Medicine and National Center for Biotechnology Information. TEPCO is now intentionally dumping water used for cooling the reactors and laced with Tritium into the Pacific, some 13 after the meltdown of the three reactors at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant. Paul said, similar to fears Julian Assange had of being extradited from England to the US, for his courageous but sometimes controversial actions, that if he is taken to Japan, “he may never see home again.”
Numerous calls to the Danish consulate in Washington, DC, Chicago, Il, NYC and Los Angeles, CA inquiring as to when Denmark would release Captain Watson on bail, went unanswered. Watson, because of his non-compromising position against whale hunting, has been in this precarious position before. Held in Germany in 2011, on similar charges of little merit, he escaped German custody and spent six months in exile avoiding apprehension.
Watson has France’s President Emmanuel Macron, movie star Bridget Bardot and world renowned Ethologist Jane Goodall calling for his release. It was France’s Secret Service that sank Greenpeace’s anti-nuclear sailboat, the, Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, NZ in 1985 when they placed a bomb on board, killing one of the crew.
Watson was “forced out” of the SSCS in 2022, but still has ties with the French and Brazil chapters. Now operated by property mangers from Florida, Watson said the substantial donation to the SSCS from life-long animal activist, philanthrope and beloved TV personality, the late Bob Barker, is a big point of contention. He called what happened, “a hostile takeover”, of the SSCS. He now has his own foundation, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, calling themselves, “Neptune’s Pirates”.
Paul said there will be a hearing by the High Court of Greenland on August 15th to determine if the case would proceed, and says that if it does he could still appeal the ruling in Denmark itself. He asks his supporters to put pressure on the Danish government to release him immediately as his actions to defend whales from being hunted down by Japanese whalers is wholly justified as it has been illegal to hunt whales since the International Whaling Commission ruling banned it in 1986.
No comments:
Post a Comment