“To my friends and supporters,
I am currently in a place on the planet where I feel comfortable and safe, far from the shenanigans of leaders who have turned a blind eye to the exploitation of our oceans.
The German government said that I betrayed their trust when leaving the country, but they had already betrayed mine. The German authorities had already made a political decision even before the court ruled, and during my detention, the Japanese negotiated with Germany to obtain my extradition to Japan on evidence fabricated by Peter Bethune, a former Sea Shepherd crewmember.
In 2010, the Japanese ship Shonan Maru #2 had deliberately struck and destroyed the Ady Gil, missing to kill 6 people. The Japanese captain had not even been questioned, no charges were ever brought against him, the damage was never paid, and he took Ady Gil's captain, Peter Bethune, to Japan. cooperated with the Japanese coastguard to produce false evidence and blame me for the attack, while I objected to his decision to board the Japanese boat.
We have cost the whaling industry tens of millions of dollars, and in October 2011 they appropriated a war chest of some 30 million from the Tsunami Fund to fight Sea Shepherd. This money allowed them to increase their security at sea, to bring us lawsuits in the United States and to attack where they think we are vulnerable.
And the only opportunity they found was a 10-year-old incident that took place in Guatemalan waters in 2002. The event was a simple obstruction of a Costa Rican ship with a water cannon. This action, which had also been directed with the authorization of the government of Guatemala, went against a shark fin cutting operation that had been filmed for the needs of the award-winning documentary, " The Lords of the Sea ”. It was against a vessel that a year earlier had been accused of shark fin poaching in the waters of the Galápagos National Park Marine Reserve, where our boat, the Sirenian, had helped apprehend it.
Japan had already tried to get me arrested by Interpol for the Ady Gil incident, but Interpol had rejected their 'red' notification request, only giving them a 'blue', which means that countries could bring back my comings and goings to Japan without being able to stop me.
In December, the President of Costa Rica met with the Japanese Prime Minister. I went to Germany, at the Hamburg Film Festival in November 2011, without being worried. In March, I traveled to Spain and France without any incident. And in May of this year, I was arrested in Germany for an extradition request from Costa Rica. And I discovered that Costa Rica, like Japan, had made the same request to Interpol, which had finally rejected their request.
Germany, however, a country without an extradition agreement with Costa Rica or Japan, has decided to take on what they call a bilateral agreement with Costa Rica. This, of course, caught the attention of Japan, which started negotiations with Germany for my extradition. This Japanese request has been approved by Germany 23 July 2012. I was alerted the day before, the 22 July, by a reliable source sympathetic.
For the case in Costa Rica, I had the evidence on film, and with more than twenty witnesses I was certain to win against poachers. My only concern was that Costa Rica put me in the hands of the Japanese authorities, because with Japan, I have absolute certainty that once in prison, I will never be released.
This certainty meant that I had only one option; I decided to leave Germany immediately.
I find it absurd, after all these years of campaigns for the protection and preservation of marine life, during which I did not cause any harm to anyone and only opposed the illegal operations as defined by the laws conservationists, that Japan can bring charges against me after destroying a $ 2 million building, wounding one crew member and almost killing five others.
I am very disappointed with the attitude of the German government. To me, it is obvious that Germany conspired with Japan and Costa Rica for me to fall into the hands of the Japanese authorities. It is clear that they had decided this long before the court handed down its verdict. All the Germans I saw approved of my actions. I haven't met a single person in the streets, the courts, the media, or the various events I've attended and lectures I've given who doesn't appreciate what I'm doing. Even the police and members of the courts gave me encouragement. ”
Paul Watson
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2 comments
I love chat for nothing. That’s why I’m getting involved. The ban on diving with decoration is simply a matter of total ignorance of what… decompression is. This is why we can in no case invoke security to impose this kind of stupid rule. If someone here can answer the following question, then he can justify the absurd measures that Marie-Aline rightly speaks of, the question? here it is: what is the safety curve? it is a sectarian notion and totally outdated. I say sectarian because it consists in fact in reducing the knowledge of the phenomena of saturation / desaturation to a single chapel, that of PADI in this case. For 12 years, I have been carrying out comparative decompression models for a French magazine and these measurements are rich in lessons. Indeed, on the basis of a typical weekend that we follow scrupulously to be able to compare, we obtain ascent times, because I do not want to limit the desaturation to the levels which are only a form of decompression, the ascent. in itself is just as important, thus total times which go from the simple to the double from one model to another and I speak of models currently on the market. So here is the absurdity of this safety curve story: two divers do strictly the same dive, come on, they hold hands until the time to start the ascent, one goes up with a deep stop RGBM model, Mares or Suunto, it will have to stop, for example, one minute at mid depth, first reprimand, then 5 minutes at 3 m and why not 3 more minutes for the recommended safety stop, the other, which dives with a Océanic in DSAT mode Roger and Powell, the best-selling model in the United States as if by chance, will pass him without stopping and wave hello to him, this dive is very real, I have it in front of me in my tests, their state of saturation is the same, it is only their decompression model that differs. Which one is the safest, to use the argument read in this forum, the one that makes stops or the one that does not for the same dive? If an instructor wants to impose this kind of absurd and ignorant principle, when he goes to the end of the concept and imposes a decompression model, it will at least filter the customers. And the most important thing in all this is to take into account that it has been a long time since we no longer use, in modern systems, this notion of no-stop diving, it does not exist, it does not exist. 'There are only dives with or without a stop in the water, which, ask the doctors, are only preparatory stops for the most important level: the one that begins when you arrive on the boat in a state of over saturation, the proof , you can't fly, you don't have to make any effort, no apnea etc etc ..., so to do, if we want to talk about safety, you might as well arrive on the boat with the most over saturation. limited possible, which means to have done rather a little more than a little less stops in the water.
That said Marie Aline, the Egyptian DPs you are talking about were undoubtedly trained in a hurry and do not yet have the experience that would allow them perhaps to make the difference, you should know that recently the law Egyptian imposes a DP for 8 divers on the boats, where there was often a single guide on a boat of 24 clients, 3 are now needed, so to avoid 3 European salaries, many centers were quick to train in the economy of instructors recruited from among the crews, which I would find quite commendable if we went
Good-morning Paul,
I am delighted that you are gone, it was the only solution to continue the struggle you have started. I hope that all this trouble will stop and that you will be able to continue your action for our oceans. Thank you for taking the trouble to write to us, there are so many rumors and lies that your article puts it right.
I wish you the best for the rest of the events. Sincerely.