SYDNEY (Reuters) - Three Australian environmental activists were detained on board a Japanese whaling ship on Sunday after boarding in protest at Japan's annual whale cull in the Antarctic, anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said.
The three activists from Forest Rescue, an Australian group specialising in direct action to prevent logging, boarded the ship early on Sunday with assistance from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Sea Shepherd said in a statement.
U.S.-based Sea Shepherd is tailing Japan's whaling fleet as it heads towards the Southern Ocean to try to prevent the cull.
The statement described the activists as "prisoners now detained on a Japanese whaler."
Speaking while en route to the Antarctic, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson told Reuters by satellite phone that the activists were still on board the Shonan Maru 2. He said the Japanese vessel had been sent to disrupt Sea Shepherd's longstanding campaign to stop the cull.
There had been no contact from the Japanese and the activists' radios appeared to have been seized, Watson said from aboard the Steve Irwin, one of two ships heading south with the aim of preventing the hunt from taking place.
"The Shonan Maru won't talk to us. They don't respond to our radio calls," Watson said. "They are chasing us."
A New Zealand-based spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, which coordinates the annual hunt, confirmed the three men were on the Japanese boat and uninjured. He did not rule out that they might be taken to Japan.
"The three men are on board," spokesman Glenn Inwood told Reuters. "They are being questioned now and they remain on the vessel
Source:http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE80702K20120108
The three activists from Forest Rescue, an Australian group specialising in direct action to prevent logging, boarded the ship early on Sunday with assistance from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Sea Shepherd said in a statement.
U.S.-based Sea Shepherd is tailing Japan's whaling fleet as it heads towards the Southern Ocean to try to prevent the cull.
The statement described the activists as "prisoners now detained on a Japanese whaler."
Speaking while en route to the Antarctic, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson told Reuters by satellite phone that the activists were still on board the Shonan Maru 2. He said the Japanese vessel had been sent to disrupt Sea Shepherd's longstanding campaign to stop the cull.
There had been no contact from the Japanese and the activists' radios appeared to have been seized, Watson said from aboard the Steve Irwin, one of two ships heading south with the aim of preventing the hunt from taking place.
"The Shonan Maru won't talk to us. They don't respond to our radio calls," Watson said. "They are chasing us."
A New Zealand-based spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, which coordinates the annual hunt, confirmed the three men were on the Japanese boat and uninjured. He did not rule out that they might be taken to Japan.
"The three men are on board," spokesman Glenn Inwood told Reuters. "They are being questioned now and they remain on the vessel
Source:http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE80702K20120108
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