Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson must stay in jail, court rules
The veteran campaigner is currently being held in a Greenland prison over an international arrest warrant for past anti-whaling interventions.
Captain Paul Watson pictured during a past expedition. Credit: Barbara Veiga/Sea Shepherd
Veteran campaigner and longtime anti-whaling activist Captain Paul Watson has been ordered to remain in jail whilst officials deliberate whether to extradite him to Japan.
Watson is well-known for his decades of pioneering work in marine conservation. He founded Sea Shepherd back in 1977 and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) later in 2022, and his anti-whaling efforts have been featured in the reality TV series Whale Wars. He also co-founded environmental charity Greenpeace.
However, the Captain was detained in a surprise arrest earlier this year in July when he and his crew of 25 volunteers stopped in Greenland to refuel his ship.
Captain Paul Watson during the arrest. Credit: CPWF
The 73-year-old has remained behind bars ever since, with a court hearing held yesterday to decide the next steps in his case.
The judge agreed with the prosecution’s claim that Watson is a flight risk, and ruled that he must stay in detention until 2 October, while authorities continue their investigations.
Authorities in Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, arrested Watson because of an international arrest warrant issued by Japan in 2012. The warrant accuses Watson of firing a stink bomb from a speedboat towards a Japanese whaling ship. The incident, according to Japan, caused an injury to a Japanese sailor. However, Watson’s legal team says it has footage to show that there were no sailor’s on the Japanese ship’s deck at the time.
Watson’s fleets have often used direct-action tactics to expose and confront illegal activities at sea, with a focus on the controversial whaling industry.
But the captain maintains his innocence in the case, and said “hundreds of hours” of video evidence taken aboard his ship will disprove the accusations.
“This is about revenge for a television show that extremely embarrassed Japan in the eyes of the world”, Watson said during yesterday’s court hearing. “I think a review of all the video and of all the documentation will exonerate me from the accusations.”
He also accused Japan of trying to make an example of him. The country has requested Denmark to extradite Mr Watson to Japan, where he could face up to 15 years in jail.
“They [Japan] want to set an example that you don’t mess around with their whaling,” Watson previously told AFP.
Japan, along with Norway and Iceland, are the only countries in the world where commercial whale hunting is considered legal. The Japanese government is said to be helping the country’s whaling industry to help counter a falling demand for the delicacy. The government recently announced that it will be adding large fin whales to its list of commercial whaling species, while a new $47 million whaling ‘mother ship’ set sail for its first hunt earlier this year.
Watson’s arrest has caused outrage around the world, receiving widespread international news coverage and over one hundred thousand people urging the Danish authorities to release the captain. Watson, who has been living in France, has also received support from the office of French president Emmanuel Macron, which has asked Denmark not to extradite the defendant.
Please join Species Unite in calling on the Danish Minister for Justice, Peter Hummelgaard, to do the right thing and release Captain Paul Watson. Send an urgent message in support here.
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