Whale Defenders

Overexploit, cheat, and deplete. The cycle of greed behind the global whaling industry drove one whale population after another toward oblivion. It is still not known if some species will ever recover, even after decades of protection.

The statistics say it all. The blue whales of the Antarctic are at less than 2 percent of their original abundance, despite 40 years of complete protection. Some populations of whales are recovering but some are not.

Only one population, the East Pacific gray whale, is thought to have recovered to its original abundance, but the closely related West Pacific gray whale population is the most endangered in the world. It hovers on the edge of extinction with just over 100 remaining.

Tokyo Two

Following a Greenpeace undercover investigation in May 2008 that exposed the embezzlement of whale meat from the taxpayer-funded whaling fleet, Japanese authorities responded with a politically motivated prosecution, arresting Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki and raiding the Greenpeace Japan office in June 2008.

Junichi and Toru attended a closed "pre-trial" court session in the Japanese City of Aomori where they face a politically driven prosecution and up to ten years in prison for alleged theft and trespass.

Junichi and Toru were charged with theft and trespass after they exposed a major scandal around the embezzlement and black market sales of whale meat from the Japanese government-sponsored Southern Ocean whaling program.

Our office in Japan is under attack and our activists are being prosecuted as a warning to citizens who bring the Japanese government’s whaling program into question. But we are not giving up. The only way we can stop whales being harpooned in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is to bring down the whaling industry in Japan. We have it on its knees and with enough support we can finish it - forever.

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Show your solidarity with Junichi and Toru — and tell the government of Japan that protecting the whales shouldn't be a crime. 

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