Whaling activist Paul Watson celebrates release from jail after Denmark refuses extradition to Japan
US-Canadian pioneer member of Greenpeace, who was arrested in Greenland in July, will now spend Christmas with his sons
Alternate universe Gabe Newell
On one hand, Watson isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack. He has noble goals and is understandably frustrated with Japan being allowed to exploit a loophole to protect its whaling industry. But if you’re going to engage in piracy, making TV shows about it isn’t brilliant.
On the other, there’s no excuse for hunting an intelligent, sentient being. There may be no excuse for hunting any animal. Full stop.
Good on Denmark.
denmark doing lots of good things recently
US-Canadian pioneer member of Greenpeace
...you mean the guy who got kicked out of Greenpeace to found Sea Shepherd as Greenpeace was insufficiently violent to his tastes. The guy who, after sinking two ships, surrendered himself to Iceland to be brought to justice, upon which the Icelanders said "Nope we won't give you the media ruckus you want" and only expelled him from the country.
He's been in and out of prison and hiding his whole life. Much of his activism has a honourable goal, the reason he landed in prison this time is due to him protesting against internationally recognised legal, non-commercial whaling, a whole slander campaign. In short the Faroese tracked him and then tipped the Greenlanders off who don't like him either, leaving Denmark proper (because responsible for the foreign relations of both) to deal with the extradition procedure.
the reason he landed in prison this time is due to him protesting against internationally recognised legal, non-commercial whaling,
Wait, do you want to say because it's internationally recognized legal and it's not business makes it morally okay to kill whales?
Yes. What's especially despicable is that among all the people who are allowed to continue their (sustainable!) practices, which are ultimately no different than hunting deer in the forest, the Faroese are singled out by activists because they "look insufficiently primitive". It's an important part of their culture, the catch is divided up according to age-old rules so that everyone gets to eat, it's the cornerstone of solidarity on the islands. They're probably going to stop sooner or later anyway as other signifiers and methods (such as the social state) take over the role, but they should not be forced to rush that just because some capitalists exploited the seas while the whales they hunt are nowhere even close to endangered. They're still getting forced to accelerate that process -- not by Sea Shepherd, but by the rest of us dumping mercury into the ocean.
These kinds of animal rights activists do have a penchant for being over-zealous. Random other example: Lumping Greenland Inuit in with Canadian seal clubbers.
the reason he landed in prison this time is due to him protesting against internationally recognised legal, non-commercial whaling, a whole slander campaign.
I think you might be conflating the reason he was arrested and how he was found. The reason he was arrested was because Japan had a man interpol red notice put out on him.
"The police were acting on an Interpol red notice issued by Japan. Tokyo was seeking his extradition on charges relating to the alleged boarding of the Japanese whaling ship Shōnan Maru 2 in the Southern Ocean in February 2010. The charges, including one of assault, carried a sentence of up to 15 years in jail."
Legality doesn't dictate morality, especially in international law.
Yep there's no charges against him on the Faroer, mostly because they don't let him into their waters so he can't really do any damage, but they're still pissed because of that slander campaign. He wasn't in hiding as such as many many countries didn't care about the red notice, much less actively hunting him down, but then the Faroer got wind that he was heading to Nuuk and arranged a SWAT surprise for him.
I do wonder whether there were some diplomatic shenanigans going on behind the scenes. Why wouldn't Japan give assurances that time served in Greenland would be subtracted from whatever he has to serve in Japan? Silly thing to blow an extradition over.
I loved Whale Wars! Loads of fun cheering for the whalers.
I must avenge the mammals
