By DPA
Sydney : The Japanese government has ordered the release of two activists detained when they boarded a Japanese harpoon vessel in Antarctica to deliver an anti-whaling protest, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Wednesday.
But Paul Watson, the captain of the Steve Irwin protest ship, said the conditions set for the transfer of Australia Benjamin Potts, 28, and British national Giles Lane, 35, were unacceptable.
“They are saying we have to agree to not take any action against the whaling activities, not to video or photo their whaling activities, and want us to send a boat – a small zodiac – 10 miles over the horizon to pick up my crew, which I’m not going to do,” Watson told Australia’s AAP news agency.
Watson alleged the pair were assaulted and held above decks on the Yushin Maru 2 for two-and-a-half-hours in freezing weather before being taken below.
“They assaulted them, they tied them to the rails and actually at one point those rails went under water up to their waists,” Watson said.
Smith said Australian police were looking at the circumstances of the detention of the two activists but would not comment when asked whether they had been taken hostage or whether they had been assaulted.
“I’m not going to make an on-the-run judgement about the circumstances of what has occurred,” Smith said. “From the very first day I urged all parties in this matter to exercise restraint. It’s quite clearly the case that restraint hasn’t occurred here.”
The five-vessel fleet left Japan in November with the intention of returning with 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales. Initially, 50 humpbacks were to be taken as well, but this part of the catch is in abeyance after Australia and New Zealand led an international protest.
Glenn Inwood, spokesman for Japanese whaling organization the Institute of Cetacean Research, said the pair had been tied up to restrain them after a failed attempt to foul the propeller. He described the accusation they had been assaulted as “absolute lies”.
The new Australian government led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been accused of talking tough on the whale slaughter but doing little to stop it.
The Australian Federal Court ruled Tuesday, in a hearing brought by the Humane Society International, that the Japanese broke environment protection legislation because they were killing and injuring minke and fin whales in the Australian whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean.
But the court noted that Japan doesn’t recognize the whale sanctuary and that the society was powerless to enforce the injunction.
An Australian ship left Perth last week on a 20-day mission to monitor the Japanese. The Oceanic Viking, with 30 Customs officers on board, intends to gather video evidence for a possible international court action against Japanese government-sponsored whaling.
Watson called the Oceanic Viking a “ghost ship” because it hadn’t approached the Japanese despite having been given details about the fleet’s location by the protestors.