AFP Videos – France
Whale conservationist Paul Watson held in Greenland until October 2
Greenlandic courts on Wednesday extended the detention of environmental activist Paul Watson until October 2, pending the Danish government’s decision on an extradition request from Japan in a case related to his fight to defend whales. Japan accuses Paul Watson, 73, of being jointly responsible for damage and injuries on board a Japanese whaling ship in 2010 as part of a campaign led by his NGO Sea Shepherd, which he denies. Founder of Sea Shepherd and the ocean foundation that bears his name, Mr. Watson was arrested on July 21 in Nuuk, capital of the autonomous Danish territory, while he was en route with his ship, the “John Paul DeJoria”, to intercept a new Japanese whaling factory ship. “He gets an additional 28 days of detention, which is scandalous. We are disappointed, even if we feared this decision,” the president of Sea Shepherd told AFP. Shepherd France, Lamya Essemlali, after the hearing. The lawyers appealed the decision to the High Court of Greenland. The American-Canadian activist was arrested under an extradition request from Japan, which revived its request issued in 2012 via an Interpol red notice. Paul Watson is accused of injuring a Japanese sailor in the face by throwing a stink bomb – butyric acid – to hinder the work of the whalers. But for Mr Watson’s counsel, the video material proves that the crew member who, according to the Japanese authorities, was injured, was not even present when the stink bomb was thrown on board. “The judge agreed to view the Japanese footage but refused to view ours,” Ms Essemlali regretted. “But with their footage, you can’t see where the shot landed, unlike ours.” One of Watson’s lawyers, Jonas Christoffersen, said he would ask the Greenland High Court to view the footage. “This five-second video shows that there is no sailor on deck where the Japanese say there was,” Christoffersen told AFP. It will be up to the Danish Justice Ministry to decide whether to extradite Watson. He told AFP on Tuesday that the examination of the official extradition request was “underway”, without giving a timetable for his decision. “This is a procedure involving several legal stages, and the Ministry of Justice is currently awaiting the legal assessment of the Greenlandic police and the Director of Public Prosecutions,” he told AFP. The Greenlandic police heard Mr Watson on Tuesday, Ms Essemlali said. – “Very unfair” – A controversial figure in environmental circles, particularly because of his strong-arm methods, the activist has obtained the signatures of 100,000 people on the petition demanding his release. On the political front, Paris has asked Copenhagen not to extradite him. From his cell in the Nuuk penitentiary, a modern grey building set against the rocks, Paul Watson displays his determination to continue his fight. “If they think that this will stop our opposition! I have only changed ships, and my current ship is ‘Nuuk Prison’,” he said in an interview with AFP at the end of August. The Japanese “want to use me as an example to show that their whaling is not to be touched.” A loyal supporter of the activist, Lamya Essemlali sees this detention as an opportunity to shine the spotlight on Japanese intransigence. “The good side of things is that there has never been so much attention on Japanese whaling and (..) to denounce what Japan is doing in the Antarctic, how Japan is violating the global moratorium on whaling,” she said.Mr. Watson and his foundation have two boats ready to intervene if one of the whaling powers takes it over. Along with Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only countries that allow whaling. A former harpooner, Shintaro Takeda, said in an interview with AFP that only luck prevented deaths during the violent clashes 15 years ago between Japanese whalers and Sea Shepherd activists.bur-ef/mba
