Whale meat scandal: police launch investigation

Posted by jossc — 20 May 2008 at 10:53am - Comments

Greenpeace Japan delivering stolen whale meat to the Tokyo Public Prosecutor's Office

Greenpeace Japan delivering stolen whale meat to the Tokyo Public Prosecutor's Office

You did it! Following last week's revelation that crew members from the fleet responsible for Japan's so-called 'scientific' whaling programme had for many years been stealing and illegally selling off prime whale bacon at the end of each annual hunt, more than 40,000 of you wrote to the Japanese government to demand an investigation. Today the Tokyo district Public Prosecutor has confirmed that there will be one.

We will be cooperating in every way possible to ensure that it is a full investigation, to the highest levels and not simply the scapegoating of a few individual crew members.
Greenpeace Japan spent four months cracking open what appears to be a major conspiracy of corruption at the heart of Japan's government-backed, sham scientific whaling operation. An informer associated with whale hunting company Kyodo Senpaku told us that not only their employees were involved - officials from the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) - the agency that carries out the so-called "scientific research" work on board the whaler's factory ship Nisshin Maru - were almost certainly aware of the thefts as well.

While the investigation is underway, we all need to push the Japanese government now to shut down whaling and cut off its tax subsidies (which currently amount to around £2.4 million every year). We also want to ensure that they investigate this scandal at the highest level - not just by scapegoating crew members. Please send a message to the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan!

About Joss

Bass player and backing vox in the four piece beat combo that is the UK Greenpeace Web Experience. In my 6 years here I've worked on almost every campaign and been fascinated by them all to varying degrees. Just now I'm working on Peace and Oceans - which means getting rid of our Trident nuclear weapons system and creating large marine reserves so that marine life can get some protection from overfishing.

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