JAKARTA, Feb. 8 (Kyodo) — Greenpeace activists staged a protest outside the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta on Monday, calling for a fair trial of their two colleagues in Japan who were arrested after exposing an alleged whale meat embezzlement scandal involving the Japanese government-sponsored research whaling program.
"Fair trial! Respect international human rights law!" banners carried by a Greenpeace activist said in English and Japanese during the silent protest, part of vigils to be held all this week outside Japanese embassies around the world.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Arif Fiyanto delivered a letter addressed to the Japanese ambassador urging a fair trial for two members of Greenpeace Japan, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki.
Following a series of pretrial sessions, Sato and Suzuki are set to face trial on Feb. 15 for trespassing and stealing a 23-kilogram package of whale meat in April 2008.
"Junichi and Taro acted in the public interest to expose a scandal that involved corruption in the taxpayer-funded whaling program," Fiyanto said.
Greenpeace insists that the pair have been unfairly charged and that they merely helped exposed the alleged whale meat embezzlement within the whaling program.
Last month, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a U.N.-mandated body under the Human Rights Council in Geneva, found that the Japanese government had breached a series of internationally guaranteed human rights by detaining the two Greenpeace activists.
The Japanese government reacted to that finding by saying that while everybody has the right to express his or her opinion, nobody is allowed to commit a crime for the purpose of expression of such opinion.
Sato and Suzuki allegedly entered a delivery post of trucking firm Seino Transportation Co.'s Aomori branch on April 16, 2008 and removed a 23-kg package of whale meat sent by a crew member of the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru.
According to Greenpeace, the two men were conducting an investigation following whistleblower allegations that an organized whale meat embezzlement was being conducted by crew inside the scientific whaling program.
In their investigation, Greenpeace said, Sato and Suzuki finally discovered strong evidence that cardbord boxes containing whale meat were being secretly shipped to the homes of whaling fleet crew and then sold for personal profit.
Sato delivered a box of the whale meat to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Office in May 2008 and filed a report of embezzlement.
The embezzlement investigation, however, was dropped June 20 that year with the prosecutors saying Nisshin Maru distributed the whale meat to crew members as a bonus. On the same day, the two activists were arrested and held for 26 days before being charged.
The two activists admitted to having entered the Seino office and taken the package, but they denied anything unlawful, insisting they did so to obtain evidence for the embezzlement of whale meat by crew members of the whaling factory ship.
Sato and Suzuki face up to 10 years in jail if found guilty.
