Greetings from Tokyo
Greenpeace and other NGO’s have received reports that the U.S. delegation to the IWC may be supporting a proposal to overturn the ban on commercial whaling, and this runs counter to Obama’s campaign pledge from a Greenpeace questionnaire to enforce “international wildlife protection agreements, including strengthening the international moratorium on commercial whaling.” Despite refusal to honor the moratorium by Japan, Iceland, and Norway, the moratorium has proven to be the most important whale conservation agreement in history. A working group of the IWC is met in St. Petersburg Beach Florida this week to discuss the controversial proposal, and Greenpeace me them there.
Read more about this issue and the recent IWC meeting: Greenpeace Protests Potential U.S. Support of Legalized Whaling
In addition, Prof. Dirk Voorhoof, European Court of Human Rights expert, will speak in Tokyo and Aomori as well as give testimony in court. He argues that Junichi and Toru were justified in their investigation tactics to expose embezzlement of tax payers money within the whaling industry. Their actions were in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as they have the right to gather and share this information in the public interest. The ICCPR is an international agreement to uphold civil and political rights including freedom of expression. Japan is a party to the ICCPR and has been since 1979. Now Prof. Voorhoof’s opinion is being substantiated in academic circles and editorial boards. ! As of last month, an official UN human rights working group on arbitrary detention found that Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki’s arrest and detention on charges of theft and trespass was also in violation of the ICCPR and called for a fair trial in accordance with international law.
Read a blog on Huffington post, from Kumi Naidoo.
The United States should be supporting whale conservation on two fronts. First, through IWC delegates who should be calling for no whale killing under any political guise, not a watering down of the successful 1986 moratorium. Second, by urging Japan to uphold civil and political rights, give whale defenders Junichi and Toru a fair trial (disclosing all evidence), and cease efforts to repress the truth about whaling in Japan.
In the Greenpeace Japan office, we are preparing for the trial, including Junichi who is being strong and keeping a positive attitude inspite of the large challenges before him: an absurdly high conviction rate in Japan, a Japanese whaler whistleblower who has been scared away from court, and an international community not doing enough to save the whales, an issue he has risked so much for. Click on images below to take action!
