Former Greens leader Bob Brown has appealed to Tasmanian-born royalty, Queen Mary of Denmark, to step in and urge the release of anti-whaling campaigner Captain Paul Watson.
The founder of the Sea Shepherd marine conservation organisation was taken into custody by police last month when his ship docked in Danish-controlled Greenland’s Nuuk harbour.
Watson was en route to intercept a newly built Japanese whaling ship in the North Pacific when he stopped to refuel and was arrested.
Brown has pleaded with the Danish queen to stand against “cruel” whaling practices and negotiate Watson’s release despite “constitutional restraints on the monarchy”.
“Watson’s case will shame Copenhagen in the eyes of the world if it acts as the lickspittle of Tokyo whose cruel and bloody whaling in Antarctic waters ended in 2014,” Brown said in a statement on Thursday.
“There is enormous respect for Her Majesty Queen Mary here in her native Tasmania and, at the same time, huge support for Watson, who was pivotal to getting the illegal Japanese whale killers out of our oceans.”
Captain Paul Watson, founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, pictured in 2008. Source: AAP / Frances Roberts
Brown described the situation as “perverse,”, saying the Danish government had made a “dreadful mistake” that would drag Denmark’s reputation “through the mud”.
“The Japanese have for more than a decade had an Interpol alert out for Paul Watson’s arrest,” he told SBS News.
“But reasonable countries like the United States and France have ignored that because they know that the Japanese whalers are the criminals — the International Court of Justice has found that — and Paul Watson was the upholder of the law.”
It came as Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek condemned Japan’s decision earlier this week to commercially hunt the world’s second-largest whales in the country’s economic zone.
“Australia is deeply disappointed by Japan’s decision to expand its commercial whaling program by adding fin whales,” she said on Thursday.
Why has Paul Watson been arrested?
Watson, who is also the co-founder of Greenpeace, was arrested on an international Interpol warrant on 21 July.
More than a dozen Danish police and SWAT team members boarded the John Paul DeJoria and handcuffed Watson before leading him off of the ship.
Watson could reportedly face up to 15 years in prison in Japan over charges including accomplice to assault and ship trespass.
The charges relate to the alleged boarding of a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean in February 2010, after protesters had clashed with whalers on their return home.
“What we have is the criminals capturing the green cop on the beat, the whale protector, to put him in jail because he stopped them making money out of the bloody business of harpooning whales south of Australia in the international whale sanctuary,” Brown told SBS News.
Sea Shepherd founder and anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson was arrested by Danish police on 21 July. Source: Supplied / Fiji Chambaret/PR IMAGE
The 73-year-old is reportedly in “good spirits” and has “no regrets”, French environmentalist activist Lamya Essemlali said after visiting him.
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation is known for using “aggressive non-violence” to protect whales and other marine life.
Watson will be held in Nuuk until 15 August. He was denied bail and deemed a flight risk, and it remains unclear whether Denmark will allow his extradition to Japan.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office has urged Danish authorities not to extradite Watson, who has lived in France for the past year after a local online petition garnered 670,000 signatures in eight days.
Brown also called on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to intervene in the matter.
