France Télévisions was able to interview the founder of the NGO Sea Shepherd, placed in pre-trial detention in Denmark while awaiting his possible extradition to Japan.
In his cell in the Nuuk prison center (Greenland), he has been waiting for two months for the Danish government’s decision on his possible extradition to Japan. Paul Watson, environmental activist and founder of the NGO Sea Shepherd, must be given his fate on October 2, in a case linked to his fight for the defense of whales. Japan accuses the 73-year-old environmental activist of being co-responsible for damage and injuries aboard a Japanese whaling ship in 2010, which he denies.
As authorized by Danish law, a France Télévisions team was able to interview him in the prison, a gray building located on the side of rocks. We meet him in a cramped room, a small room where prisoners usually receive their families, their children.
France 2: Soon, you may be free. But there is also a risk that you will be extradited to Japan. Are you afraid or are you confident?
Paul Watson: Oh, I can’t imagine Denmark extraditing me to Japan. S‘They send me to Japan, I will die in Japan, that’s a fact. I will not get a fair trial, and I will not survive in their prison system. I am a very hated person in Japan.
The problem is that I’m caught between Japan, a whale-killing nation, and Denmark, another whale- and dolphin-killing nation. They share the same interest: they illegally kill cetaceans. They both have an interest in keeping me quiet.
Are you treated well in the prison?
Yes, I am treated well here. My only problem is that I can’t write. They injured my hand in mid-August when they handcuffed me. They put me in the back of a police van with my hands handcuffed behind my back without a seat belt, I was being tossed around. Since they won’t let me have a computer or a typewriter, that’s my only real problem. The other difficult thing is that I have two little boys aged 3 and 7, I miss them, I am only allowed to talk to them for ten minutes on Sunday.
You are detained here because you have been on the Interpol Red Notice for years, issued at the request of Japan because of your actions against whaling. According to Japan, during this campaign, crew members were injured.
No one was hurt. They say the rotten butter thrown at them caused blisters on their faces, but it turns out it’s not a toxic substance. On the other hand, what causes many blisters is pepper spray. We have videos of them shooting pepper spray at our crew, into the wind; It comes back to them, then they run their hands over their faces. They sprayed themselves with pepper spray!
These stink bombs were sent in glass bottles; they could have caused injuries.
Between 2005 and 2012, I think we threw away about a thousand bottles. No one was ever hurt, and there is no evidence that anyone was hurt this time. They did not report having been cut by glass.
“My policy for 50 years has been what I call aggressive nonviolence.”
Other charges included in the Interpol notice: boarding a boat and obstructing commercial activities by force. What do you answer?
First of all, I wasn’t even there! Peter Bethune is the man who got on the Japanese boat. I was against it: there is filmed evidence. The only thing Peter did was go on board, knock on the door, and give a letter to the captain of the ship. Peter Bethune wanted to present him with the invoice for his boat, the one that the Japanese had destroyed!
And they say I prevented their business activities? They said it was research, they said it was science, they admitted, finally they pretended, that it was not for commerce. How could I prevent their commercial activities if it was not commercial?
But isn’t that what you’ve been doing for years: stopping them from fishing?
Yes, but you’re forgetting one thing: what Japan was doing was truly illegal, in violation of the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. In 2014, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that this whaling was illegal.
Japan says it’s not illegal.
They can say whatever they want. I’m sure all the criminals say that what they are doing is not illegal, but the International Whaling Commission has made that very clear.
They’re not part of it anymore, are they?
Never mind ! It is the only globally recognized authority on the regulation of whales and whaling. This is a false reason, it is not because you decide to no longer follow the rules that you find yourself above the law. We cannot allow Japan to eliminate endangered species, we simply cannot allow it.
Is that why you were in Greenland?
Yes the objective was to pursue the Japanese whaling ships again. They built a new ship called the Kangei Maru. We are afraid that this ship will go to the Southern Ocean or the North Pacific.
Do you know what happened to this boat?
I know they kill fin whales. That’s why we do what we do because the governments of the world are doing nothing to enforce international conservation law.
“What good are treaties, regulations and laws if they are only on paper and no one enforces them?”
You could be extradited to Japan. If so, do you still think everything you did was worth it?
I’m proud of it, I have no regrets. I’ve taken incredible risks throughout this time, and I’m still taking those risks. I think they’re worth it because if we can’t protect the whales, the dolphins, we won’t be able to protect the wildlife in the ocean and the ocean won’t survive. If the ocean dies, we die with it. We cannot live on this planet with a dead ocean, it’s as simple as that.
Sea Shepherd France
The Japan Cetacean Research Institute
The Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR)
Non-exhaustive list.