Subject: [cwj 15] Japanese police raid Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ship
From: Amit Srivastava <amit@corpwatch.org>
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 13:09:40 -0700
Seq: 15
Thursday, May 11 3:42 PM SGT Japanese police raid Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ship TOKYO, May 11 (AFP) - Dozens of Japanese police raided the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Tokyo harbour on Thursday, two days after arresting four of its protesters for trespassing. "This morning they raided the Rainbow Warrior and they are still here," said Greenpeace campaigner Von Hernandez. "They went through our computer files, databases and searched our personal cabins," he added. "It is totally outrageous and totally unwarranted given the minor charge of trespassing." Meanwhile other officers searched Greenpeace's Japanese headquarters in Tokyo. Police said a total of 40 officers were involved in the Rainbow Warrior search while another five officers were dispatched to the environmental group's headquarters. Officers planned to remove documents from the 555-tonne Netherlands-registered Rainbow Warrior, which sailed in for maintenance on May 5 after an Asian anti-pollution campaign, said Hernandez. They seized information and campaign handouts together with office decuments during a three and a half hour search of the Greenpeace headquarters, the group said in a statement. Police on Tuesday arrested four Greenpeace members -- three men and one woman -- after they unfurled a banner from the Health Plaza Toshiba building in Tokyo, which sits adjacent to an incinerator, to protest against dioxin emissions from the burning of rubbish. Dioxins, which can be emitted from waste incinerators, form a highly toxic chemical compound that has been linked to a variety of cancers and congenital birth defects. The climbers, Briton Alan Baker, 35, Belgian Marleen Vanpoelk, 30, Chinese-Canadian Clement Lam, 32, and Dutchman Paul Schot, 30, were sent for questioning by prosecutors on Thursday. Police decided to raid the Rainbow Warrior after one of the activitsts admitted that their demonstration had been planned aboard the ship, said a district police spokesman. Greenpeace fiercely protested against the action. "We are appalled by this over-reaction from the Japanese authorities," said Rainbow Warrior captain Joel Stewart. "We will not allow these measures to interfere with our right to peacefully protest against damaging the environment," he said in a statement. Greenpeace Japan director Sanae Shida said the police action threatened the right to protest. "If every public protest continues to be met with such a strong reaction from the police and from the government in Japan, there is a real danger that it prevents the public from demanding accountability for crimes committed against the environment," she said in the statement. In March 1999, Japanese authorities triggered world-wide protests when they held three Greenpeace demonstrators for 11 days after they unfurled a banner protesting against the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in toys at the Tokyo Toy Fair. ______________________ The Corporate Watch in Japanese http://www.corpwatch.org/japan (CWJ) mailing list is a moderated email list in English designed to connect activists campaigning against Japanese corporations and investments around the world. * To unsubscribe from the CWJ mailing list, send an email to majordomo@jca.apc.org with text "unsubscribe cwj". To subscribe to the CWJ mailing list, send a message to majordomo@jca.apc.org with the text "subscribe cwj" * The CWJ mailing list is NOT intended for wide distribution. If you would like to post messages from this list somewhere else, we ask that you first contact us at cwj@corpwatch.org ______________________