Activists vow to carry on disrupting Japanese whaling
A militant anti-whaling group vowed Friday to immediately resume
harassing Japanese whalers as two of its activists were returned to
their protest ship after being detained on board a harpoon vessel.
The two protesters, held aboard the Japanese whaler in Antarctic
waters for two days, were handed over to an Australian customs vessel
early Friday and later returned to their Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society’s ship.
The pair were released to the Australian customs ship, the Oceanic
Viking, after a direct handover between the Japanese ship and that of
the conservationists proved impossible to negotiate.
Australian Benjamin Potts said the Japanese crew had tried to throw
him overboard when he and fellow activist, Briton Giles Lane, 35,
clambered onto the harpoon ship to protest Japan’s whaling programme
during a high seas chase.
“Yeah they picked me up, two guys picked me up by the shoulders, and
the gunner, the guy that shoots the whales, picked my legs up and they
attempted to tip me over,” Potts told Fairfax Radio Network back on the
protest ship. Potts, 28, pledged to resume action against the whalers.
“Well hopefully we’ll continue with the chase, until such time as we
have to head back,” he also told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC).
“We’ll continue to harass the Japanese fleet and prevent them from
whaling.”
Other Sea Shepherd activists also said the incident would not stop
them from attempting to save the whales.
“The moment we get them back on board we plan to resume what we came
here to do, which is enforcing international conservation law,”
executive director Kim McCoy told the ABC ahead of the pair’s release.
The Japanese whaling fleet is on its annual whale hunt in the icy
Antarctic waters, with a target this year of killing about 1,000 of the
giant mammals.
Japan exploits a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium on
commercial whaling to kill the animals for what it calls scientific
research, while admitting the meat from the hunt ends up on dinner
plates.
Sydney, Friday, AFP |