Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson says Japan seeking to make an example of him

Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson has said that authorities in Tokyo are seeking to make an example of him, as he awaits a possible extradition to Japan, while in detention in a Greenland prison.

Speaking to the AFP news agency, the 73-year-old US-Canadian campaigner said his time behind bars has not prevented him from continuing his fight to save whales.

“If they think it prevents our opposition, I’ve just changed ship. My ship right now is Prison Nuuk,” Watson said, a reference to Greenland’s Nuuk Prison.

Watson was arrested in July in Nuuk, the capital of the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, on the basis of a 2012 Interpol arrest warrant issued by Japan, which accuses him of causing damage to one of its whaling ships in 2010 in the Antarctic.

The warrant also claims he injured a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers’ activities. Japan has asked Denmark to extradite him to face trial. Watson is being held behind bars pending the government’s decision.

Watson and his legal team insist Tokyo has a vendetta against him.

“They want to set an example that you don’t mess around with their whaling,” Watson told AFP, adding “the lawyers tell me they’re going to extend my detention.”

The Nuuk court is to decide on 4 September whether to prolong his custody.

Watson, who featured in the reality TV series Whale Wars and founded Sea Shepherd as well as the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF), is known for radical tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

In 2012, he was arrested in Germany at the request of Costa Rica over another incident. He was released on bail and required to report to police daily, but he left the country to avoid extradition.

More than 100,000 people across the world have signed a petition calling for his release.

French president Emmanuel Macron’s office has asked Denmark not to extradite the activist, as has Brigitte Bardot, the French actor turned animal rights activist. Watson has lived in France for almost two years.

“Denmark is in a very difficult place,” he said. “They can’t extradite me because first they are vocal proponents of human rights,” adding that the Japanese judicial system was “medieval”.

“I didn’t do anything, and even if I did the sentence would be [a fine of] 1,500 kroner ($223) in Denmark – not even a prison sentence – while Japan wants to sentence me to 15 years.”

From his cell in the modern grey prison building overlooking the sea, Watson said he watch as whales and icebergs pass by his window.

“In 1974, my objective was to eradicate whaling, and I hope to do that before I die.”

But he insists that he and his co-activists are “not a protest organisation”.

“We’re an enforcement organisation” ensuring that the seas are protected, he said, rejecting the label of ecoterrorist sometimes used against him.

“I do aggressive non-violence interference.”

“There is no contradiction between aggressive and non-violence – it means that I will try and get the knife from the person trying to kill a whale, but I won’t hurt them.”

“I don’t cross the line, I’ve never hurt anyone,” he said.