Tokyo Two

Hannah hard at work colouring in our Tokyo Two manga-style artwork outside the Japanese embassy last week

A big thank you is due to everyone who sent messages of support on behalf of the Tokyo Two last week. We presented two 'wishing trees' (complete with hundreds of 'wish ribbons' bearing your requests that they are fairly treated) to staff at the Japanese embassy, and over 2,200 of you emailed the Japanese ambassador.

This blog was originally posted by Lisa on our Making Waves weblog.

Toru Suzuki is one of our activists in Japan, now facing a maximum of 10 years in prison for exposing a crime at the heart of Japan's whaling industry.

The so-called 'scientific' whaling fleet has now returned to port from the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary for what we hope will be the last time, and it is almost one year since Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki exposed the embezzlement of whale meat by the fleet's crew.

Junichi and Toru are still on trial for their efforts to expose this crime, however, recently their bail conditions were relaxed slightly, enabling them to come back to work – just not with each other.

Whaling on Trial from Greenpeace on Vimeo.

My colleague Maarten over at Greenpeace International has just released this video telling the story of Junichi Satu and Toru Suzuki (the Tokyo Two), the anti-whaling activists soon to be tried in Japan for the supposedly heinous crime of informing their government that crew members on the whaling ships were stealing meat and selling it on the black market.

Following a tip-off from an an informant working in the whaling industry, they obtained a box of stolen whale meat, held a press conference and asked for an investigation. The result? Amazingly the government exonerated the whalers after little or no investigation, and put Junichi and Toru on trial instead. Hmmm, sounds like some people in high places over there are willing to go to extreme lengths to stop the Japanese public hearing the truth about what the government insists is a purely 'scientific' programme.

Japanese whalers at work in the Southern Ocean Whale Sactuary

There have been a number of confusing reports recently about whaling, so I thought it was only right to try and make sense of some of them for you.

Since the last International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Chile, there have been inter-sessional international meetings to try and agree a way forward for the IWC, and break the impasse of recent years. Conservationists fear that the truth is pro-whalers are not willing to compromise, and are seeking acceptance of commercial whaling, which is still conducted despite an international ban on the practice. To make matters worse, commercial whaling, under the guise of 'scientific research' is conducted by the Government of Japan in the Southern Ocean, a globally-recognised whale sanctuary, every year.