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Re: Watson threatens to ram Jap whalers.
Anti-whaling activists reject 'demands'
January 16, 2008 - 1:43PM
Activists in the Southern Ocean are refusing to abide by a list of demands issued for the return of two crew members detained aboard a Japanese whaling ship.
Australian Benjamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35, crew members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel Steve Irwin, boarded the Japanese harpoon vessel Yushin Maru No. 2 about 4pm (AEDT) on Tuesday to deliver a written plea to stop killing whales.
Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said he had received an email from Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) that instructed his vessel to stop its protest activities as a condition of returning his crew.
"They are saying that we have to agree to not take any action against their 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 am not going to do," Watson told AAP.
He said he had been contacted by the Australian Federal Police who had told him Japan had agreed to return the men without any conditions, but he was yet to have this confirmed by Japanese whalers.
The chief of the whaling section of The Fisheries Agency of Japan, Hideki Moronuki, said the men would not be released until the conditions were agreed to.
"Immediately that Paul Watson has accepted the conditions of the safety of the Japanese vessel, they will release the two illegal intruders," he told Fairfax online.
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