It isn’t the most attractive building. Completed in the 1960s, the Danish embassy in Washington DC is a stunted two storey square block that is more low-rise than grand diplomatic mission. The entrance, a set of barred black gates, is set twenty feet back from the pavement, and is lined by skinny trees. It is a low security place: a few surveillance cameras dotted around, and not much else. After all, Danish politics is generally a muted affair attracting little attention and even less controversy – until now.
The Arrest
Greenland is two thousand miles from Washington DC. It is the world’s largest island, with a population of 55,000, and is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, despite being part of the American continent. It has six prisons holding about 150 inmates. Almost half are incarcerated at the Ny Anstalt facility, just outside Greenland’s capital, Nuuk.
One of Ny Anstalt’s more recent detainees arrived on the afternoon of Sunday July 21st. He had sailed into Nuuk Port and Harbour, also known as Godthaab, earlier that day expecting to make a quick refuelling stop. He wasn’t even sure if he would leave the ship. But there was some commotion as the vessel, the M/Y John Paul DeJoria, docked. Danish police hurried up the gangplank. They were loud and agitated, and on the hunt for one individual – campaigner and activist Paul Watson.
Watson was handcuffed, escorted off the ship and bundled into a police van. Within the hour he was in front of a judge, who remanded him on the pretext of an Interpol Red Notice issued by Japan. The Danish government had specifically flown a prosecutor to Nuuk to request Watson’s detention. It was all very fast and very slick, and within hours Watson was being processed at Ny Anstalt. As the dust settled it also became clear his arrest was very personal.
Red Notices are not arrest warrants and countries are not obliged to act on them. In fact, Watson had travelled in and out of the US, France, the UK, and Ireland prior to arriving in Nuuk and had not been detained. The issue with Red Notices is they are frequently used as political instruments helping governments exercise big brother tactics and silence detractors.
Whale Wars
For two decades Watson and a crew of volunteers had shone a light on Japan’s illegal whaling, on occasion putting their own lives at risk as they physically stood between hunter and hunted. The resistance Watson offered was effective, saving the lives of thousands of mammals from a cruel and sadistic death. Whales are chased to the point of exhaustion, harpooned with explosive grenades, tethered and dragged alongside the kill ships, with death taking up to an hour. Pregnant whales are particularly at risk because they travel more slowly and are an easier target. Be under no illusion, whaling is sadistic butchery under the most excruciating and violent circumstances. Watson’s efforts were captured in a television series called Whale Wars and caused significant embarrassment for the Japanese government, who were subsidising the illegal slaughter.
The Japanese attempted to disguise their murderous expeditions as ‘research,’ going as far as painting white lettering on the side of the kill ships. The confrontation escalated and Australia lodged a case against Japan at the International Court of Justice. In 2014, the court found in favour of Australia and ordered a halt to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. Japan finally complied with the order in 2018 and has since limited its whaling to Japanese coastal waters. While Watson was named one of Time Magazine’s Environmental Heroes of the 20th Century and inducted into the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame, he was branded an eco-terrorist and pirate by the Japanese government, who sought his arrest and issued a politically motivated Red Notice. The Notice would later be withdrawn but a second one would be issued in March 2024, alongside a bilateral request for the Danish government to arrest Watson, who was rumoured to be on his way to the Faroe Islands, also an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Japan’s renewed interest in Watson this year coincided with their launch of a new killing campaign with bigger quotas, new kill ships, and coded suggestions Japan may again hunt in international waters. Watson was vocal about his opposition and set sail – not for the Faroe Islands but for the northern Pacific.
On that fateful day in July, Watson sailed into Nuuk unaware a trap had been set. The governments of Denmark and Japan had shamefully colluded, using a bogus Red Notice, to capture him and extradite him to Japan, where he could face up to fifteen years in jail.
Since his arrest a petition for Watson’s release has attracted close to 700,000 signatures, and French President Macron (Watson lives in France), actor Pierce Brosnan and leading zoologist Dr Jane Goodall have asked Danish authorities to release him. In Washington DC, Cady Witt went one step further.
The Danish Embassy in Washington DC
“I’m not very active on social media but my friend messaged me on Signal asking if I had heard about Paul’s arrest. I went online and was shocked. We immediately started talking about doing something, about getting some protests going at the Danish embassy.”
Cady lives in Washington DC and is an experienced animal rights activist. She has volunteered for several organisations, including Watson’s previous setup, Sea Shepherd, in 2019.
Cady wasted little time tapping into her network and mobilising for an action at the Danish embassy. Local friends discussed logistics; one friend agreed to fly in from Las Vegas. Signs were made, and some washable chalk, for pavement writing, was bought. She stressed it had to be washable. As Cady and her co-protestors arrived at the embassy entrance, they were approached by a secret service officer who asked what they were planning. A simple gathering by the entrance gate and some chalk writing she replied. The protest was without incident.
Cady and the group returned each week – same spot, same signs, same chalk. But on Tuesday 13th things changed.
The protest started at 10am. Signs were held up at the roadside. Some were in English, one in Danish: Befri Paul Watson vaer venlig (Free Paul Watson please). Cady busied herself chalking on the driveway leading to the embassy gates. She wrote quickly so as not to obstruct the entrance. In less than a minute, she was done: Release Paul Watson. Set him free.
Cady re-joined the rest of the group on the sidewalk. Within ten minutes she was arrested and handcuffed. One senior officer, unfriendly and uncompromising, made a series of phone calls while two others looked on. Cady was detained on the street for thirty minutes before a police van arrived to take her to the local police station, where she was kept alone in a cell until 6pm. She wasn’t offered a phone call or access to legal services, and disturbingly the reason for her arrest was never made clear.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C-qY5KGJ6kY/?hl=en-gb
The Central Detention Facility (CDF), nicknamed the DC Jail, is a mean place. It was opened in 1976, holds 1,400 inmates and has a terrible record for prisoner welfare. Equally worryingly, according to a May 2023 report, sixty percent of detainees are uncharged, making the CDF unique in the US penitentiary system.
Cady was transferred to the CDF at 6pm and told she would be there until her court appearance the following day.
“I’ve been in custody before for activism – but this was very different.”
The CDF consists of long corridors lined by cells on either side. The cells aren’t so much walled as separated by thick wire mesh. It is all very hostile and inhuman. There is no natural light and the only piece of furniture in the cell is a sheet metal cot. No bedding is provided, and each cell is monitored by a black lensed camera placed in the ceiling. Corridors and cells are lit continually by bright fluorescent strip lights.
I asked Cady what happened when she arrived.
“I was taken to my cell. It was noisy, a lot of screaming during the night.”
Cady was offered a meal. She told the officer she had dietary requirements – no meat, dairy, or eggs. She was left a sandwich – it was baloney and cheese. She placed it at the end of the cell, and within minutes it was teeming with cockroaches. Cady climbed onto her cot and drifted in and out of short bursts of sleep. By morning she had several skin irritations, including lesions and swelling, which she suspects were caused by the cockroaches.
At 11am on Wednesday 14th Cady was transferred to court. She spent the next four hours in a holding cell and was released at 3pm. During her twenty-eight hours in custody Cady was never offered a phone call, provided access to a lawyer, or charged with an offence.
What’s next I enquired?
“We keep up the protests until September 5th [Watson’s next court hearing] when we see what happens to Paul.”
In my last discussions with Cady, I asked if there were any profound moments during her experience.
“Someone had etched something into the paint work of the bed in my first cell. It read ‘climate justice.’ I immediately felt a sense of solidarity, of companionship, and the cell took on a whole new meaning.”
Cady’s comment left me wondering – who are we jailing these days?
Japan’s Whaling Ambitions
Kyodo Senpaku is a consolidation of whaling departments of Japanese fisheries. The consolidation was necessary because whale products are not popular in Japan and the sector is unprofitable. Data from 2021 concluded 1,000 tons of whale meat was consumed domestically, down from a high of over 230,000 tons in 1962. Yet, the violent practice of whaling carries a perverse sense of national identity, which some are keen to revive.
In April 2024, Kyodo Senpaku launched their new floating slaughterhouse, the Kangei Maru, where killed whales are flensed, or stripped of their blubber, and their meat butchered and readied for consumption. The ship is large, overly large if it is to operate only in Japan’s coastal waters, and many conservationists now worry Japan’s whaling fleet will return to international waters.
In May 2024, Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries extended their kill list, announcing they would allow the hunting of fin whales, along with minke, Bryde’s, and sei whales in Japanese coastal waters.
Catherine Bell, Director of International Policy at the International Fund for Animal Welfare was quick to sound the alarm on Japan’s reckless decision: “The fin whale is the second largest animal on earth. Putting it in the gunsights in 2024 is a big mistake for Japan, for whales, and for the international community working to protect them. We call on Japan immediately to withdraw this indefensible decision.” Her plea fell on deaf ears.
On August 2nd, Kyodo Senpaku confirmed the Kangei Maru had caught and killed a fin whale off the north-eastern coast of Japan. It was male, nineteen meters long and weighed fifty-five tons. It is believed to be the first fin whale to be killed as a result of commercial whaling in half a century. It was ‘dismembered and frozen’, and will be landed at Sendai Port, north of Tokyo, in late August.
I last spent time with Paul in January. It was an overcast day, dirty grey, and we were on his narrow boat which serves as his office. There were small piles of manuscripts dotted around the place – short poems, snippets of stories, micro memoirs. The man is a prolific author. He was relaxed and at ease and said he had more to write.
By July he was gone. He boarded the M/Y John Paul DeJoria to sail to the top of the world and down the other side to the north Pacific, to defend the silent creatures that swim our seas. Sadly, he was snared in a politically motivated trap. Now it’s our turn to defend Paul.
Footnote:
There has been a general erosion of civil liberties over the last decade. The right to oppose, to gather and protest, is being severely restricted in both the US and the UK. Cady Witt’s experience was not random but deliberate. Paul Watson’s detention is the result of a legal apparatus hijacked by a corrupt political agenda. In Britain, approximately forty ‘political prisoners’ have been jailed for taking action to stop crimes against humanity since July 2024. Real Media recently reported on how the law has been manipulated to function as an instrument of control.
©2024 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer
