Machimura raps anti-whaling group for not picking up detained members

Jan 17, 2008

(Kyodo) _ Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura on Thursday criticized an anti-whaling group for not picking up two of its members, who were detained after they boarded a Japanese whaling vessel Tuesday in the Antarctic Ocean, despite Japan's offer to release them.
"We have told (the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) we want to hand them over quickly, but Sea Shepherd has not shown any reaction whatsoever so we are frankly in a bind," Machimura told a press conference.

"It is a truly bizarre situation that they would not come to pick (the members) up" despite the offer from the Japanese side, the top government spokesman said.

Machimura said Japan has asked the Australian government for help in mediating the handover of the two male members of Sea Shepherd from the Yushin Maru No. 2, as an Australian customs vessel Oceanic Viking was near the Japanese boat.

Commercial whaling was banned by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. But the whaling convention allows Japan to kill the mammals so long as it is for scientific purposes.

Sea Shepherd maintains that what Japan is doing is illegal and contravenes global treaties such as the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species. Japan says that the populations of certain whale species have recovered sufficiently to warrant whaling.