Japanese police arrest Greenpeace pair over whale meat

June 20, 2008

World news

Japanese police arrest Greenpeace pair20th June 2008, 14:16 WST

Japanese police have arrested two Greenpeace members who have alleged corruption in the country's controversial whaling program, accusing the activists of stealing whale meat.

Police raided five locations, including the international environmental group's Japan headquarters in Tokyo, officials said.

Police arrested Junichi Sato, 31, a prominent voice in the media against whaling, and fellow Greenpeace member Toru Suzuki, 41, a police spokesman said.

Last month, Greenpeace said a lengthy investigation revealed that whalers on the taxpayer-backed hunt had taken home meat and sold it on the black market.

It intercepted one box of meat and handed it to prosecutors in Tokyo as evidence, seeking action against 12 crew members on the whaling ship.

A spokesman for police in northern Aomori prefecture, where the meat seizure took place on April 16, said Sato and Suzuki were arrested for trespassing and theft.

Greenpeace denounced the arrests as an "intimidation tactic" by the government.

"We've uncovered a scandal involving powerful forces in the Japanese government that benefit from whaling, and it's not surprising they are striking back," said Greenpeace Japan's executive director Jun Hoshikawa.

"What is surprising is that these activists, who are innocent of any crime, would be arrested for returning whale meat that was stolen from Japanese taxpayers," he said.

Greenpeace, along with most Western countries led by Australia, is strongly opposed to Japan's whaling program, which kills some 1,000 of the ocean giants a year.

The Japanese government, which says whaling is part of the culture, carries out the hunt using a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium that allows "lethal research" on whales.

The annual hunt in Antarctic waters has been repeatedly disrupted by activists.

Sea Shepherd, a group more militant than Greenpeace, has hurled stink bombs at the whalers, leading Japan to brand environmentalists as terrorists.

The arrests come just days before the International Whaling Commission (IWC) holds its annual meeting in the Chilean capital Santiago.

The gatherings have turned into bitter showdowns between supporters of maintaining or strengthening the moratorium on whaling versus pro-whaling forces.

Norway and Iceland are the only countries that openly defy the moratorium on commercial whaling. Activists accuse Japan of using its foreign aid to persuade developing countries with little history of whaling to join its side at the IWC.

Sato, writing on Greenpeace Japan's blog shortly before his arrest, appealed for a continued probe into the alleged whale meat embezzlement.

"I just want to appeal to the hearts of people involved in the whale embezzlement case: 'Do you think it's alright to remain silent?'" Sato wrote.

"If Japan wants to take the lead as an environmentally advanced country, please, conduct diplomacy that can turn international friction into cooperation," he wrote.

Kazuo Hizumi, a lawyer for Greenpeace Japan, hoped the prosecutors' probe into the whale meat would continue.

"The raids must not affect the investigation into the embezzlement accusation," he told reporters at the group's headquarters.AFP