Activist Paul Watson reveals disturbing reason he isn't afraid to die in 'horrendous' Japanese prison
Anti-whaling campaigner Captain Paul Watson is fighting extradition to Japan, a country with a notoriously harsh prison system.
Faced with dying in jail if he’s sent to Japan, you’d imagine Captain Paul Watson would be afraid. The Sea Shepherd founder and Greenpeace co-founder has been fighting his extradition while locked up in a high-security prison on the frigid coast of Greenland for four months.
Conditions inside Anstalten which was opened in 2021 are comfortable, and Watson has been allowed to take phone calls and accept over 4,000 letters from supporters. But Japanese jails are notorious for their strict, military-style discipline and rules dictate when inmates are allowed to talk, eat, sit and sleep.
While acknowledging Japan's corrections system sounds "horrendous", during an interview with Yahoo News Australia last night, Watson explained he's not scared of them. And there’s one very simple reason why.
“I almost died when I was a child, and from that experience, I realised that there's no need to be afraid of dying,” he said.
Aged eight, he had been playing pirates on Passamaquoddy Bay in Canada, which has one of the fiercest tides in the world. His friends tied him to the mast of a ship at low tide and then forgot to cut him free. As the water rapidly rose above his chest, young Watson called for help, but no one heard.
He had already reconciled himself with death by the time he was ultimately rescued by a passing group of teenagers. This change has emboldened him as he's taken direct action against whalers during his 50 years of advocacy.
“If you're not afraid of dying, then you're not afraid of anything. So I think the secret to courage, in a way is just accepting the reality of life and death,” he said.
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What is Watson accused of doing?
Watson was arrested in July by armed police after his ship made port in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory. The veteran activist had been en route to the Southern Ocean as he suspected Japanese ships could have been headed to the whale sanctuary to hunt.
His charges relate to a Red Notice — a warrant that requests police forces worldwide provisionally arrest a person pending extradition — which was issued in 2012 but thought to have been cancelled. It was filed in response to Watson's campaign to stop Japan killing whales in the Southern Ocean — the country's so-called scientific whaling program was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice two years later.
Although he was not present at the time, the Red Notice alleges Watson ordered a Japanese whaling vessel to be boarded, and that a Japanese crew member was injured after a stink bomb was thrown.
Watson claims the man suffered a minor graze to his face.
Why lawyer doesn't think Watson will be extradited
The charges could see 74-year-old Watson locked up for 15 years in Japan, meaning he'd likely die in jail. But Watson’s Danish lawyer Jonas Christoffersen is confident he won't be extradited, as he intends to demonstrate the Japanese crew member injured himself.
“Sea Shepherd threw stink bombs onto the Japanese vessels every year for five or six years. So there's nothing unusual about this kind of activism,” he told Yahoo News.
“But what’s unusual about this case is that the Japanese authorities claim that a crew member got injured — so they say it was a violent assault on the harpoon ship.”
Christoffersen has extensive video taken during the incident because Sea Shepherd's fight against the whalers was the subject of a documentary series, Whale Wars.
The lawyer claims it’s simply not possible that the stink bomb harmed the crew member as the wind would have carried its contents away from his face. Instead, he claims the Japanese crew member injured himself by shooting a device believed to contain pepper spray.
“You can see that they got it in their own face,” he argues.
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Reason Watson believes his arrest was political
On December 18, Denmark’s Minister of Justice will make a decision on Captain Paul Watson’s extradition. If he approves the extradition, Watson won’t be leaving for Japan any time soon, as the decision would be challenged in the Supreme Court and then the European Commission.
If that fails, the European Commission on Human Rights would be asked to examine Japan’s judicial system where "harsh" interrogations by police result in a 99 per cent conviction rate.
Watson doesn’t think his arrest has anything to do with violence, but rather it’s political.
At the time of his arrest, his newly formed ocean advocacy groups Neptune’s Pirates and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation were opposing both Japan’s decision to begin killing endangered fin whales, and the Danish government’s refusal to stop its Faroe Islands territory from killing thousands of dolphins.
He had recently travelled to France, Switzerland, Monaco, Ireland and the Netherlands without incident, and it was only when he set foot on Danish soil that the Red Notice was produced. He argues the arrest is designed to make an example out of him and serve as a warning not to interfere with whaling operations.
“I’d be very surprised if I am sent to Japan. But if I am, then I go from being a leader in the anti-whaling movement to being a martyr to the anti-whaling movement,” he said.
He added, "saving whales is about saving the ocean, and it's about saving humanity. I've always had the greatest enemy of humanity as ourselves. I've dedicated my life to doing everything to try and protect them.”
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