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solonavi 24 June 2008 Campaign, General 165 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

www.greenpeace.org

Japanese police have arrested two Greenpeace activists for exposing a whale meat scandal involving the government-sponsored whaling programme. The two activists, Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, are being investigated for allegedly stealing a box of whale meat which they presented as evidence.

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We requested an investigation into the scandal, and the Public Prosecutor agreed that there was sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. In light of evidence that the operators of the whaling operation were aware of the scandal and did nothing, we asked that the investigation not focus on crew, but on the bureaucrats who run the whaling programme at public expense. Instead, Japanese police arrested the Greenpeace activists in a show of force, occupying the Greenpeace offices with 40 police for more than 10 hours while they seized computers, documents, and cell phones.

The Japanese whaling programme costs the Japanese taxpayer 500 million yen per year (around 4.7 million US dollars).

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More than 40 police officers raided our offices and the homes of the activists, and spent 10 hours seizing cell phones, documents, and computers, despite the fact that we had documented every step of how we obtained the whale meat, turned the full dossier over with the evidence, and made ourselves available to police to help with the investigation at any time. A simple phone call could have brought Junichi and Toru to the police station. Instead, the government made a public spectacle of shutting Greenpeace down.

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On May 8th, before the scandal broke, Takahide Naruko, an official with the Japanese Fisheries Agency, was asked by investigators whether sailors “bring back some whale meat as private souvenirs,” to which he replied “Of course not,” explaining that the distribution of whale meat was only through official channels, at a price set by the Fisheries Agency to offset the costs of the publicly funded whaling programme.

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On May 28th, an editorial in Asahi Shinbum noted the contradiction between claims by the Institute for Cetacean Research that souvenirs were being handed out, and the claims by Kyodo Senpaku that they were not. The newspaper called the “contrived explanations” suspicious and asked for a full investigation.

“The whaling programme in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is funded by the Japanese taxpayers, including the Greenpeace activists who have been arrested, and they have a right to know who is profiting from their money,” said Mister Hoshikawa.

“The Japanese whaling programme has been shamed internationally for its lack of scientific credibility, now it is being shamed at home as well for trying to hide the corruption, and now for taking revenge on those who have exposed it. The Greenpeace activists should be immediately released.”