Japan police arrest Greenpeace members over whale meat

Police raided five locations, including the international environmental group's Japan headquarters in Tokyo, officials said.

Police arrested Junichi Sato, 31, a prominent voice in the media against whaling, and fellow Greenpeace member Toru Suzuki, 41, a police spokesman said.

Last month, Greenpeace said a lengthy investigation revealed that whalers on the taxpayer-backed hunt had taken home meat and sold it on the black market.

It intercepted one box of meat and handed it to prosecutors in Tokyo as evidence, seeking action against 12 crew members on the whaling ship.

A spokesman for police in northern Aomori prefecture, where the meat seizure took place on April 16, said Sato and Suzuki were arrested for trespassing and theft.

As he was transported from Tokyo to Aomori by train under heavy police escort, Sato walked confidently through a crowd of reporters.

"Please reconsider Japan's whaling policy," he said.

Greenpeace Japan's executive director Jun Hoshikawa denounced the arrests as an "intimidation tactic" by the government.

"We've uncovered a scandal involving powerful forces in the Japanese government that benefit from whaling, and it's not surprising they are striking back," Hoshikawa said.

Greenpeace, along with most Western countries led by Australia, is strongly opposed to Japan's whaling programme, which kills some 1,000 of the ocean giants a year.

The Japanese government, which says whaling is part of the culture, carries out the hunt using a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium that allows "lethal research" on whales.

The annual hunt in Antarctic waters has been repeatedly disrupted by activists.

Sea Shepherd, a group more militant than Greenpeace, has hurled stink bombs at the whalers, leading Japan to brand environmentalists as terrorists.

The arrests come just days before the International Whaling Commission (IWC) holds its annual meeting in the Chilean capital Santiago.

The gatherings have turned into bitter showdowns between supporters of maintaining or strengthening the moratorium on whaling versus pro-whaling forces.

Norway and Iceland are the only countries that openly defy the moratorium on commercial whaling. Activists accuse Japan of using its foreign aid to persuade developing countries with little history of whaling to join its side at the IWC.

Sato, writing on Greenpeace Japan's blog shortly before his arrest, appealed for a continued probe into the alleged whale meat embezzlement.

Kazuo Hizumi, a lawyer for Greenpeace Japan, hoped the prosecutors' probe into the whale meat would continue.

"The raids must not affect the investigation into the embezzlement accusation," he told reporters at the group's headquarters.

Vocabulary

controversial, adj: being not agreed on; argument about

to reveal, v: to make known; to show

to intercept, v: to cut off from an intended destination; to take while it is on its way to somewhere else

to trespass, v: to enter unlawfully; to something to somebody that violates their rights

to denounce, v: to say publicly that something is bad

loophole, n: something that is not covered by a rule and lets you do something that is against the intention of that rule

moratorium, n: an authorised period in which an activity is stopped or delayed

lethal, adj: making something die

militant, adj: easily ready to fight

embezzlement, n: crime of using something that you are assigned to take care of for your own benefit

Questions

1. What were the Greenpeace activists arrested for?

a. hunting whales

b. stealing whale meat

c. unauthorised whale breeding

d. releasing whales into the wild

2. For what reason are the whalers alleged to have taken whale meat?

a. to cook at home

b. to destroy evidence

c. to bait inland whales

d. to sell on the black market

3. Who do Greenpeace accuse of being involved in the illegal sale of whale meat?

a. Toru Suzuki

b. the Antarctic Federation

c. people in the Japanese government

d. the International Whaling Commission

4. How is Sea Shepherd different from Greenpeace?

a. They attack people.

b. They don't like whales.

c. They use only passive resistance.

d. They are paid by the Japanese government.

5. Which of the following countries does NOT go whaling?

a. Japan

b. Iceland

c. Norway

d. Australia

Synonyms

Which of the following words replace the ones from the passage best?

1. allege

a. deny

b. claim

c. prove

d. suspect

2. raid

a. storm

b. avoid

c. inspect

d. observe

3. prominent

a. shy

b. recent

c. leading

d. admired

4. back

a. shun

b. avoid

c. oppose

d. support

5. hurl

a. drop

b. throw

c. target

d. explode

KEY

Questions                1. b, 2. d, 3. c, 4. a, 5. d

Synonyms                1. b, 2. a, 3. c, 4. d, 5. b

By Ajarn Horst Baelz