The arrest of the anti-whaling activist Paul Watson in Greenland – where he could face extradition to Japan – has been condemned as “politically motivated” by supporters, who compared the case to the detention of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.
“The parallels are disturbing,” said Omar Todd, chief executive and co-founder of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF).
“We have our own extradition drama going on,” Todd said. “Governments don’t like people to tell the truth or do the right thing.
“Assange’s case was political and Paul’s case is the same. If Julian had been extradited to the US, he knew he was going there to die. If it comes to it and Paul gets extradited to Japan, he could get 15 years in prison … it’s like a life sentence.”
The office of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he was pressing Danish authorities not to extradite Watson to Japan. Macron is “following the situation closely” and “intervening with the Danish authorities”, his Élysée Palace office said.
Brigitte Bardot, the former actor and French animal rights activist, has criticised Japan for its “manhunt” of Watson and demanded his release. More than 300,000 people have signed an online petition for Macron to call for Watson’s release.
Watson, a 73-year-old Canadian-American, who lives in France, was an early member of Greenpeace and later founded Sea Shepherd, the marine conservation group known for its direct action tactics.
Watson, who appeared in the Whale Wars TV programme, was arrested and detained in handcuffs on Sunday after arriving in Nuuk, the autonomous Danish territory’s capital, on the Captain Paul Watson Foundation ship, apparently on an international warrant issued by Japan. Greenland’s justice ministry is responsible for deciding if there are grounds for extradition, according to police there.
“He doesn’t have time to play that game,” said Todd. “He has a wife and three kids, including a seven-and-a-half-year-old and a three-year-old, living in Marseille. His wife is very upset.”
Watson’s arrest took place during a stop-off on a mission tracking Japan’s new whaling ship, the Kangei Maru, in the northern Pacific Ocean.
CPWF said it believed his arrest was related to an Interpol “red notice” issued over “Watson’s previous anti-whaling operations in the Antarctic region”, and that the international arrest alert had been issued in March. Interpol could not confirm the date of the notice.
“This development comes as a surprise since the foundation’s lawyers had reported that the red notice had been withdrawn,” the CPWF said in a statement.
Greenland police said Watson had been arrested on Sunday in response to an international arrest warrant. On Monday, a judge ruled that he must be detained until 15 August while the case was being investigated. An appeal against his detention on Tuesday was denied.
