October 30, 2024 • 57 mins
Whale Wars Star and founder of Sea Shepherd, Captain Paul Watson, has been imprisoned since July in Greenland! The anti-whaling hero has applied for political asylum in France as he fights off attempts by Japan to get him extradited to that nation where he could end up behind bars for 15 years. Activists around the world are demanding that Watson be released immediately with protests from Los Angeles to France outside Danish government offices. Watson was first arrested back in July when his ship docked in Greenland, which is park of the kingdom of Denmark. Danish authorities are still deciding whether to extradite him. Japan is one of the few nations that still engages in whaling. Environmentalists and animal lovers across the globe are outraged that any government would side with whalers at a time when our seas and the animals in them are in crisis. UnchainedTV’s Jane Velez-Mitchell speaks with Omar Todd, Global CEO of the Paul Watson Foundation. https://www.paulwatsonfoundation.org/
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(00:00):
Streaming network, Jane Velez Mitchell.
You're about to hear a secret solution to
the problems that plague our world.
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of human evolution, all it takes is one
simple choice.
Now, here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell.
We have breaking news for you in the
(00:23):
battle to free Captain Paul Watson.
This 73-year-old anti-whaling hero is
the subject of demonstrations around the world.
People who are outraged that the whale war
star and founder of Sea Shepherd, Captain Paul
(00:43):
Watson, has been imprisoned in Greenland since July.
This anti-whaling hero has applied for political
asylum in France as he fights off attempts
by Japan to get him extradited to that
nation where he could end up behind bars
for 15 years.
And he just wants to stop the gruesome
(01:04):
slaughter of whales that Japan is engaging in.
Activists around the world are demanding that Watson
be released immediately with protests from Los Angeles
to France, outside Danish government offices.
Watson was first arrested back in July when
his ship docked in Greenland.
(01:26):
And Greenland is a very, very large country,
but very sparsely populated that's part of the
kingdom of Denmark.
Danish authorities are still deciding whether to extradite
him.
And Japan is one of the few nations
that is still engaging in whaling.
We are so excited to have with us
(01:51):
today a man who is the CEO of
the Paul Watson Foundation, Omar Todd.
Omar, thank you for joining us live from
London.
What is the very latest when it comes
to Paul Watson?
How is he doing?
(02:12):
Well, thanks for having me on your show.
How is he doing?
I think now he's getting a little fed
up with the process of the slowness of
the wheels of justice that aren't turning too
quickly.
He's resolute though, strong, determined, but at the
same time, obviously he's missing his wife and
(02:35):
two kids and his family in general.
But at the same time, he's strong as
I've ever seen.
He's the most upbeat out of all of
us, actually.
He's a man of great courage, strength, but
he is frustrated a little bit at the
court system.
I mean, we've had now six or so,
or at least four or five now sort
of adjournments and remands continuously.
(02:58):
And, you know, so it's getting a bit
frustrated now from the day he was sort
of arrested back in the 21st of July.
Here's what I don't understand.
I don't understand the story at all.
Why is Denmark siding with Japan?
Japan is one of the few countries left
on earth that is still engaging in whaling.
(03:19):
And from what I read, there's actually an
international treaty against whaling.
So I don't get why Denmark is going
along with what Japan wants.
I would think Denmark, who's generally considered a
very progressive country, big on environmentalism, big on
(03:40):
sustainability.
Why would they go along with this horrific
plan by Japan to continue whaling?
And apparently they have a brand new whaling
ship that they wanna have some fun with
by going out there and killing a bunch
of whales.
What's in it for Denmark?
Well, that's a conundrum, isn't it?
(04:01):
That's the paradox of it all.
I mean, here you have an EU country.
We're under EU regulations.
Whaling is illegal.
Backing up a extradition request of a country
that's on the other side of the planet
that continues to whale.
And we think it comes down to a
couple of factors.
(04:21):
One, we don't know the real mystery, but
we can only speculate.
We think it originated from the Faroe Islands,
which is another small group of islands under
the Danish rule nearby, who you may or
may not have heard have had this Grindelup
thing where they herd pilot whales into their
(04:41):
little fords and kill them.
And we think they are the ones that
notified the Danish authorities that Paul was on
his way via the Northwest Passage to go
to the Pacific Ocean with the vessel, the
JPD, to interfere with the Japanese whaling there
in one way or another.
(05:03):
An operation was announced called Operation Kangimaru.
And because of that, because of that, on
or around in March, April, the Japanese basically
reignited an old Interpol Red Notice against Paul,
(05:24):
but only to the Danish government.
Based on the information, the Faroese fed them.
And when Paul landed on the JPD in
Nuuk, Greenland, there was, I believe there was
14 special forces that jumped on police officers
that arrested Paul and took him away.
So one has to ask, why would they
(05:47):
do this?
What's in it for Denmark?
I mean, here you have a progressive prime
minister.
She's very pro-environment.
Denmark's known to be a progressive, law-abiding
society.
And then you have this whaling issue.
And optically, it does not do them any
favours at all to continue this narrative with
(06:09):
holding Paul on, which by the way, the
charges, the alleged charges, which amount to malicious
damage, looting, hooligism and assault as maltreatment, which
he didn't actually do.
One of the crew members who did these
things, he's been labelled to be the conspiracy
(06:31):
as part of the charges.
And this has caused all this drama when
the actual allegations themselves are minor fines in
both Greenland, the Denmark, and even two out
of three of them in Japan.
So essentially, these charges and allegations are very
(06:52):
flimsy in themselves.
And then, so you've got Denmark applying this
extradition request for charges that are really flimsy.
And here it gets even worse, that when
we go to these court sessions to discuss
the extradition, that they won't allow the evidence
that clearly shows from the TV show, Wow
Wars, that these particular charges, particularly the aggravated
(07:16):
assault aspect, which is the one they're really
focussing on, it shows that where the stink
bomb was thrown, where it hits the ship
on the, I think it's this starboard side,
there was no one there, but they won't
accept that evidence in court, but they have
allowed the prosecution to show their video evidence,
but not the defence to show the evidence.
So why are they doing it?
(07:38):
Well, we think there must be some economic
aspect to it that we don't know.
Now, we believe the Japanese went to Greenland
in December, 2023, and perhaps there was trade
arrangements done there, obviously, and there's obviously the
aspect where the Faroese are also a whaling
(07:58):
nation under the Danish government.
So it has to be that.
It has to be the Faroese, and it
has to be something going on in terms
of trade.
That's what our speculation is.
So if you're upset about this, as so
many people are, you can go to paulwatsonfoundation
.org, and the gentleman we're speaking with live
from London is the CEO of the paulwatsonfoundation
(08:21):
.org, and you can sign the petition to
demand the immediate release of Paul Watson.
I did it yesterday.
It takes literally 30 seconds.
More than 200,000 people have signed this
petition.
And as you can see on the bottom
left, if you're watching, you can donate as
well.
(08:41):
And if you're just listening, you can still
do all of this.
Go to paulwatsonfoundation.org.
Once again, that's paulwatsonfoundation.org, and with the
click of a button, you can sign the
petition to demand the immediate release of Paul
Watson.
If you feel like it, you can make
a donation.
And many, many famous people, including, well, James
(09:05):
Bond, Pierce Brosnan, have taken photos of themselves
with hashtag free paulwatson, so you can also
do that.
We have Jane Goodall demanding, Dr. Jane Goodall,
the famous primatologist, demanding the immediate release of
Captain Paul Watson, saying, Captain Watson is simply
(09:28):
taking action to try to prevent the inhumane
practise of killing whales, which most countries have
banned decades ago.
In so doing, he's expressing the anger of
thousands of people in many countries who absolutely
support his moral courage in not only speaking
out on behalf of the whales, but taking
action.
So many leaders have done this.
(09:49):
I wanna go to Annie Abram, who has
facilitated protests in Los Angeles.
Tell us about the protests that you've helped
organise, Annie, in support of Captain Paul Watson.
Thank you, Jane, and hi, great to see
you, Omar.
Samaria, Sam Marie and Michael Fujimori, who had
(10:13):
been, Sam Marie had been doing it up
north, obviously, the protests, and we've been doing
it here with Michael Fujimori and my little
baby.
We're going on doing these protests.
We've done five protests so far, and each
time there was an extension.
The reason we're doing this, because this is
a planetary issue.
(10:34):
It's far more than just Paul Watson.
Paul Watson is the hero who had been
protecting our ocean or sea life.
By protecting sea life, he also stood for
the seals that have been killed, but the
whales themselves, I've done research.
I am shocked how amazing this man is
protecting our planet by protecting the whales, which
(10:56):
is protecting the sea.
As he says, when the seas die, we
all die.
Absolutely, and you can see the bloody mess
that it is involved in whaling from these
photos provided by paulwatsonfoundation.org.
It has no place in the civilised world,
and you know what?
Paul Watson, as we know from whale wars,
(11:18):
yes, he is in your face, and the
reason is that if you're not in their
face, you can't stop whaling.
Writing a nice letter to Japan and saying,
hey, you don't eat whale meat very much
anymore.
There's really no purpose.
We don't need to whale for fuel.
There's no reason for it.
(11:40):
There's no excuse for it.
There's no justification for it.
Have you tried to reach Japan itself?
Because I know the people of Japan are
compassionate.
This is the government.
This is follow the money.
Why is Japan so hell bent on whaling
in the 21st century when obviously it's something
that belongs in the dustbin of history?
(12:02):
Omar.
Well, it comes down to jobs for retiring
politicians, essentially.
So less than 2% of the Japanese
market that whaling whale meat is marketed to,
no one eats it there anymore, particularly the
young people who aren't interested.
So why do they have whaling?
Well, they built this $48 million Citation Death
(12:23):
Star, the new factory ship, you know, and
they have to justify it operating, you know,
it's been built for long range.
So we know at some stage that they
probably will go down to the Southern Ocean
again.
And why, you know, and these, if you've
actually been there, I've been there and I've
been to where the actual whaling fishing villages
(12:43):
originate from in a shimmery area and all
this regional coastal area, the towns are dying
there.
And essentially there's only fishing left.
And then you've got older legislators that are
retiring.
And what do they do once they retire?
Well, as you can see with the current
Japanese politics, there's a lot of scandals going
on.
They tend to essentially prop up industries that
(13:05):
they've got an interest in or their forefathers
or they're traditionally done, which is of course
in this case whaling.
And they go to these, they leave their
offices and then go to these particular jobs
and they get subsidised by the government and
it continues to keep them obviously employed in
one way or another.
So that's essentially why we think they do
it.
(13:25):
I mean, at long-term, I don't think
it's going to be something that's sustainable for
them once the younger population gets older and
realises what's going on.
But for now they have vested heavily into
it.
And obviously once they heard Paul Watson was
coming over with his vessels again, they did
everything and they could to try to stop
(13:48):
that.
And that is obviously why they reignited this
old warrant around the end of March, 2024.
And they're going to try to keep him
in remand for as long as possible.
I mean, he's just hit over a hundred
days now.
So we've had a 15th of August, 4th
of September, 2nd of October, 23rd of October,
and the next one's on the 13th of
(14:09):
November.
They've run out of excuses to hold him.
Under typical detention, you wouldn't even be held
for these charges.
So the law has not been applied here
at all.
The Japanese foreign minister about a week ago
said this is all about the law, not
about the issue of whaling.
But that's absolute nonsense because you have the
Japanese contravening the law, the International Court of
(14:32):
Justice ruling, the Australian Federal Court of ruling.
They're down there in the Southern Ocean, not
even in their own waters whaling.
And this is what Paul's being charged for
when we shouldn't have been down there at
the time.
Well, at the stage of the Sea Shepherd
vessels, it should have been other countries enforcing
the rule of law down there, but they
didn't.
And Paul often says that if, well, we
shouldn't be in these places, someone should be
(14:53):
enforcing the laws that are being passed.
And if they won't do it, we have
to do it.
And here he is having to defend himself
for essentially following the law and pushing the
Japanese issue into the light of day and
being now arrested for something that they claim
(15:14):
is against the law based in Japanese law
on board their own vessel rather than the
international law at the sea.
That is so crazy.
They're siding with Japanese law over international law
when Paul Watson is defending the international law
against whaling.
Let's hear from Paul Watson himself.
(15:36):
If I die in a Japanese prison, how
will Denmark explain that?
How will they rationalise their decision if that
happens?
The extermination of entire families from unborn foetuses
to the largest whales in the pod, entire
families wiped out.
There are no survivors.
(15:57):
It has no place in the 21st century.
It has no place in the civilised world.
International outrage has erupted over the arrest of
Captain Paul Watson, famed anti-whaling activist who
faces possible extradition from Greenland to Japan, and
fears are growing for his safety.
Because of people like Captain Paul Watson bringing
(16:17):
awareness to the public about what's going on
in the Faroe Islands.
I'm hoping that all the people who didn't
sign the petition will continue to support that
cause.
So are you able to talk to him?
Have you, do you, how do you do
it?
Do you do it with FaceTime or phone?
And how is he holding up?
He's 73 years old being in jail in
(16:40):
Greenland, which is a very remote place.
Psychologically, physically, emotionally, this has gotta be hell
for him.
Yeah, look, initially when he was arrested, we
had some comfort knowing that Nuuk itself is
a fairly new facility.
It's a prison of about 48 or so
prisoners.
(17:00):
In fact, you can watch an episode on
Netflix and see what the prison's like itself.
And we thought, well, okay, it's not too
bad.
They were reasonably friendly to begin with.
We can go and visit him.
We could call him on the telephone.
And when I did go and visit him,
eventually, it was, you could ring up in
the morning and you book an employment, you
(17:20):
go and see him, you got a couple
of hours.
But they do, when I went inside and
had a look around, I was like, okay,
this is real jail.
This is not mucking around.
He's really in proper high security remand facility.
He's in a wing of about nine people
of which none now speak English.
So he's got no one to talk to
at all.
He's got, we have tried getting him a
(17:42):
typewriter.
We've tried getting him permission to get a
computer that's obviously not connected to the internet
just so we can type and write, but
they've denied all of that.
And so essentially he can get letters written
and sent to him.
And as time went on, what we discovered
is that more and more, that became a
little bit more restrictive.
So we couldn't reach him anymore until about
(18:03):
a couple of weeks ago.
We now can no longer call him.
Only he gets one call a week from
his family and only the registered Danish lawyers
can call him.
So that's made it super awkward and difficult
for us to have here on the outside
to try to communicate with him.
And I think that's because they have been
(18:23):
overwhelmed by the support he has.
And obviously maybe there's been talk behind the
scenes, making things more difficult because they don't
want him to continue to operate business as
usual in terms of the foundation or other
operations.
And I think they're just trying to make
things more difficult, isolating more.
But yeah, so he's getting a little frustrated.
(18:44):
We're a little frustrated.
We were assured for some time now that
against, under Danish law, this is very unusual
because there's not many precedents involved, but he
should have been out by now.
I mean, they should have made a decision.
So this is sort of how it works.
So you get the receipt of Japan for
the formal attrition request to the Danish government.
And then the case is transferred from the
(19:08):
Danish Ministry of Justice to the Greenlandic Police
Authority.
Then the police authority then investigate the provisions
and the extradition request to recommend whether to
exodite him or not.
At this stage, we're waiting for that recommendation.
And then the review from the Minister of
Justice in Denmark will read the recommendation and
(19:28):
decide or not whether to exodite Paul or
not.
If that happens, of course, we will immediately
do an appeal.
And then it goes to the Supreme Court
in Denmark, and then it goes to the
International Court of Human Rights, and it just
continues from there.
And that's gonna be a long time.
But really, we are hoping that they come
to their senses and just release him and
(19:48):
basically ignore the Japanese request for extradition because
it's essentially a death sentence for Paul.
And they need to understand that.
And I think that the world is trying
to make them understand that.
So, it is our hope he will be
released on the 13th of November.
But based on what we've seen so far,
(20:09):
we just don't know.
Yeah, and by the way, people who are
signing the petition are posting on various social
media that they're watching that they have signed
the petition.
Nilo Farr said, I just added my name,
so I'm urging everybody.
I signed last night while I was researching
the story.
It takes literally 10 seconds.
(20:31):
You just go to the paulwatsonfoundation.org, Paul
Watson, W-A-T-S-O-N, foundation
.org, and click to add your name.
You can also make a donation.
And Nilo Farr is also asking, what would
Japanese prison look like for Paul Watson?
They have a brutal record, not on par
with developing nations.
(20:52):
And we've also heard that same theme echoed
by some other activists who say that he
could really be brutalised if he ends up
in a Japanese prison.
You've said it could be a death sentence.
He's 73 years old.
Are you just saying that because of his
(21:13):
age or because Japan has been at war
with Paul Watson for so long?
I mean, I shudder to think what could
happen to him.
Well, essentially, if you're charged in Japan, you're
guilty.
It has a 99.7% chance of
a conviction rate.
And the reason being is if you're charged,
you're guilty.
Now, the process to fight those charges, whatever
(21:34):
they are, is long and quite exhausting.
You'll usually take up to two years before
you see a judge to fight your case.
And of course, the honour system there prevents,
the prosecutor will be questioned, why is this
person defending himself in the first place?
So there's that part of the Japanese rule
of law.
There's plenty on YouTube and Netflix about the
(21:56):
Japanese rule of law and how brutal their
justice system is.
And then you have a look at, okay,
he's got his age and then it's Paul
himself.
So the moment he gets extradited there, essentially
he'll be poorly treated in much more discomfort
and he won't break.
He won't break.
So what are they gonna do with someone
who won't break?
(22:16):
Well, they'll keep him there and they'll make
it uncomfortable for him as possible.
And that's what we're facing.
And I know he won't, he will never
capitulate.
He will never do anything that will compromise
his stance and his views because that's the
sort of man he is.
He sticks to it.
So that means there's no way out for
him.
(22:36):
And if that's no way out, then he
will be suffering up to 15 years of
jail, which is what this alleged charge can
possibly carry up to.
And as a 73-year-old man, well,
you do the sums.
Well, once again, if you're just joining us,
Omar Todd, the head of the Paul Watson
Foundation is joining us live from London.
(22:58):
And we are so honoured to speak with
him.
Paul Watson has been behind bars for more
than 100 days.
And this is creating just a global sense
of outrage.
I'm wondering if it could backfire.
And in his own way, this sort of
martyrdom of Paul Watson being the best thing
(23:22):
that ever happened to the whales.
I mean, it's not in the news day
in and day out.
Unfortunately, the news media doesn't cover these issues.
Our seas are dying, as he has pointed
out.
The most important thing we can do is
preserve our seas.
When the oceans go, we go.
Could this wake people up, given that so
(23:43):
many famous people, Jane Goodall has spoken out,
Rick O'Berry has spoken out, Pierce Brosnan,
007 has spoken out.
It's a lot of people.
Could this have an unintended effect and backfire
on the Japanese, Omar?
(24:05):
Well, look, Paul often told me that what
we do, we don't do for anyone else.
We don't do it for humans.
We do it for the whales.
We do it for the clients.
And the clients is the ocean, the seals,
the dolphins, the whales.
So his view would probably be along the
lines of, look, I'm sitting in here and
this has turned in itself a campaign.
(24:25):
This campaign of him being inside prison now
has brought more awareness back into whaling than
it may have done if we had campaigned
with the ship over in the Pacific Ocean,
engaging Japan.
So he views this as always in a
positive light.
And he feels that this has brought attention
to an issue which was sort of dying
(24:49):
down the last few years.
And some people said, oh, Paul is an
elderly statesman now.
He shouldn't be out there.
And perhaps it's his twilight.
Well, we discovered it's not his twilight years
at all.
He's bigger than ever.
He's more important than ever.
And as much as it could backfire, we've
seen the European Parliament discuss the possible extradition
(25:10):
of Paul and the majority are against it.
We had just 21 ministers of parliament in
the Australian parliament last week sign a letter
to the Danish prime minister advocating for Paul's
release.
The Great Escape Festival just withdrew from the
Faroe Islands recently in protest and Paul's just
been given the Perfect World Foundation Award for
(25:31):
2025.
So in his view, that this has brought
the issue back into the light.
And we often get people to sign waivers
when they join our crew.
If you join with us, the Captain Paul
Watson Foundation, are you prepared to die for
a whale?
Because that's essentially what people volunteer for.
And if they're not, then they shouldn't join
(25:52):
our crew.
So Paul's leading that front and centre and
saying to the world, well, look, I'm in
here for a reason.
I shouldn't be here.
The world should do something about it, but
I'm here for a reason.
So he doesn't think past that.
He's there for a reason, for the position
he stands for.
(26:13):
And it's up to us as a society
to do something about it and react in
the right way.
Now, whether we win against Japan in this
case, we don't know, but it doesn't stop
us trying.
And we think you've got to do something
anyway.
You can't just sit back and compromise your
views if it gets hard.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
And Paul will be the first to say
(26:34):
that.
And so, hat off to the guy.
He's sitting there, he's doing, he's holding this
entire campaign on his shoulders, everything.
So the least we can do is try
to get him out.
And that's what we're going to continue to
do.
Well, anybody who's ever seen whale wars should
know that this is not the type of
(26:55):
guy to crumble and go, oh, I give
up.
I mean, he is one of the fiercest
activists.
And again, for those who might say, well,
you know, he's fighting them on the high
seas.
Yeah, because that's the only thing that's going
to save these whales.
It's not asking nicely.
Everybody's asked nicely.
(27:15):
If writing letters and asking nicely and being
polite would save the whales, we wouldn't be
here right now.
If several people are saying that they've signed,
I'm urging everybody to do what I did,
sign.
It takes five seconds.
Just go to the paulwatsonfoundation.org.
Let us know if you've signed.
And just put it on social media.
(27:38):
paulwatsonfoundation.org, it's right there.
You can't miss it.
It just says, sign the petition, click.
You can also donate.
So people are saying, Pete, please post the
link.
There it is, right there.
The link is paulwatsonfoundation.org.
It is a website, paulwatsonfoundation.org.
By the way, it has extraordinary articles and
(27:58):
a slew of videos about this.
Antonio Diaz says, I signed, Ilofar has signed.
Yes, Tiffany Brunelli has signed.
So please sign, that's super, super important.
And people are saying, well, he's 73 years
old, but that's young for a vegan.
(28:19):
I just wonder how they're dealing with that
as well.
I mean, just the food that he might,
I've heard many stories of people who are
plant-based being in prison and behind bars
and basically, oh, here, you want vegan food?
Here's a roll and that's it.
Or here's a piece of toast and that's
(28:40):
it.
And they're not even given sustenance, as it
were.
I mean, on that basic physical level, is
he holding up?
Yeah, so in this particular prison, which again
is why we were all things considered, happy
we was in that particular prison, was they
get to go shopping on a Wednesday once
a week in a little internal shop and
(29:02):
he gets to pick out his own food.
So he gets to cook for himself in
a communal kitchen, two to three times a
day, although he's just going for breakfast and
dinner at the moment.
And he has lost weight, but he's eating
vegan food there and he's happy to prepare
his own food.
So that's one of the pros, I guess.
But look, the place is very remote.
It's like going to the moon.
(29:22):
I mean, Newt Airport itself had its international
airport status revoked recently.
You know, you got to go there on
a dash eight.
It's complicated.
There's always weather problems.
It's a very expensive place to go.
So he's very isolated there.
So we try to keep a revolving door
of people heading his way there.
(29:43):
You know, and also Seaship of France, which
is one of the original Seaship entities that
Paul is still part of here.
They've been first and foremost, front and centre
in the defence of Paul as well.
And France has been a great advocate for
that with President Macron pushing, as you said,
for his release.
(30:03):
Plus Paul's applied for political asylum and naturalisation
now.
So we'll see how that goes and we
hope that goes in a positive direction.
So all these things add up pressure, but
he is isolated, but he's fine.
He is eating the food, the right food,
but you know, the communication is difficult.
The place is difficult and he shouldn't be
there.
And I think over 120 days, he then
(30:26):
exceeds his prior detention time in the past.
And after that, he'll be longer in jail
than any other time in his life.
So all for an allegation of a country
for essentially finable offences in any other jurisdiction.
I mean, this is crazy.
I mean, here you've got Interpol, right?
Interpol's a system that has a constitution.
(30:48):
If you look into it, it's not supposed
to be used for political detention, but quite
a few people on the Interpol Red List
are there for political persecution and he's one
of them.
And so I think Interpol has questions to
answer as well, as well as how this
happened, as well as, you know, Japan answering
questions, but Japan won't answer any questions, but
(31:09):
certainly we're putting pressure on the Danish to
explain themselves.
So, you know, if you're a Denmark citizen,
you know, write to your local ministers and
ask why is he held.
If you're obviously in France as well, you
can also try to get hold of Interpol
because Interpol's based in France.
So we're following that up ourselves as well.
I have to say, I was completely ignorant
(31:30):
of Greenland until about an hour and a
half ago when I started to say to
myself, you know what, I should look up
Greenland and see where it is and there
it is.
I was stunned by how big Greenland is.
I mean, look at the United States on
the left and Europe on the right.
So I found out that Greenland is the
largest island in the world, by the way.
(31:52):
It's a self-governing territory of Denmark, the
12th largest country in the world by size,
almost four times the size of France and
slightly more than three times the United States
state of Texas.
So three times the size of Texas.
I mean, it's massive, but it's very sparsely
(32:16):
populated.
In 2015, it was just like 57,000
people or something really crazy small.
So I'm wondering if the politics of this
particular region played into it.
I do know that politicians sometimes use the
(32:40):
indigenous culture as an excuse for whaling.
And that does not mean the indigenous people
themselves are saying, go out and do this.
It means that cynical politicians turn around and
they use whatever levers they can to justify
and follow the money.
Can you weigh in on that, Omar?
(33:01):
Yeah, so when he was originally arrested, we
had a discussion amongst ourselves on, should we
focus the pressure on Greenland or the Danes?
And we decided in the end, it was
the Danish government that we had to apply
pressure on, mostly because the prosecutor and the
14 federal police came from Denmark.
(33:22):
And the Greenlandic people themselves, when we arrived,
were very friendly and have been continuously being
friendly.
So, and certainly I'll give you one little
bit of story that Paul's inside and initially
we were quite concerned that with the indigenous
and sort of anti-whaling views Paul would
have, that he might be seen as public
(33:44):
enemy number one inside.
So we were quite concerned, but as it
turns out, they actually have heard of him
and he's the most well-recognised person and
celebrity that they've ever had in there.
And that we actually got them copies of
Wild Wars and they all started watching it.
And so Paul walks around inside and actually
gets a lot of people shouting out that
they support him.
So even though they can't speak in English
(34:05):
or anything else, they support him.
So I don't think, I think Greenland's moving
on.
When I was there, what I didn't notice
was an enormous amounts of construction work going
on.
They're even building a new airport.
So I think, you know, with the event
of climate change, which we all know is
happening, I think there is possibly policies behind
(34:27):
the scenes that we can't quite see on
the front end that are mostly economic and
based, perhaps with the Japanese, as I mentioned,
were there with trade agreements being signed back
in December, 2023.
So there's definitely something going on.
And it was particularly peculiar, even though the
prosecutor was from Copenhagen, the judge himself, who's
(34:51):
making the current rules to remand Paul is
a local judge.
And each time Paul's been remanded longer, we
have immediately appealed to the high court, which
is done via email in Greenland, oddly enough.
And each time they've upheld the court's decision
to keep him in remand.
Now that's on Greenland.
So why is that judge holding Paul?
(35:12):
Why is that judge not allowing us to
look at the evidence from our side, which
instantly exonerates Paul, instantly.
Like you just can't go, okay, well, he
didn't throw it.
And even his crew member who threw it
didn't hit anybody.
So that's the allegation.
There's not enough evidence.
What's the bottom line allegation that he threw?
(35:32):
The bottom line allegation is that he threw
some kind of firebomb or somebody threw a
- So another crew member called Pete Bethune,
who had his ship rammed and sunk called
the Yardigill in one of the first encounters
back in 2010, wanted to present an invoice
essentially to the Japanese vessel, that captain, for
(35:56):
his $2 million vessel that had been rammed
and sunk by the Japanese whaling vessel at
the time.
They were out of, the Yardigill was out
of fuel.
It was just sitting idle.
And the Japanese vessel came from the bow
and came up and just basically ran straight
through it and cut it in half and
then just drove off.
And there was no repercussions for the Japanese
(36:16):
at all.
Incidentally, a New Zealand investigation later released that
the Japanese were at fault, but that aside.
So that was the reason why Pete Bethune
wanted to jump on board on the whaling
vessel to present an invoice to the captain
and say, hey, look, you've damaged my vessel.
Paul famously said on a Whale Wars episode
(36:38):
that he recommended you don't do that.
And you should go back to Australia to
do media about his vessel being run over
because that would probably garner more attention.
But Pete Bethune decided to go anyway.
So in this particular moment, so there's a
number of moments that matter.
So in this particular case, he went over
there, they cut, he cut the net, which
(36:59):
is the property damage allegation, jumped on board.
Yeah, jumped on board.
Which was the trespass allegation.
And then he presented the invoice to the
captain.
Of course, they took him back to Japan.
And that's when he was held for a
number of months before he eventually, so under
the Japanese justice system, he was interrogated daily.
(37:21):
He was basically, you know- And this
is not Watson.
This is somebody else.
This is, that's right.
This is one of the, you know, the
Pete Bethune who was, well, he was a
captain of his own vessel.
So he worked with us at the time,
but he was a captain of his own
vessel that was run over by the Japanese.
He wanted to present the Japanese with an
invoice.
He did so.
And then he got hauled back to Japan
(37:43):
to face these charges.
Now, what they made him do after some
months is they got him to sign a
affidavit blaming Paul Frodell.
Then that's where you have the conspiracy aspect.
And he signed that to get out of
there.
Now he since signed an affidavit after he
got out saying that he was forced to
sign that inside so he can get out
because he, you know, he wasn't, he was
(38:05):
just going to be stuck there forever.
And so that's part of it.
And that's where the trespass, the property damage,
and those particular allegations, which are by the
way, all just finable offences under Japanese, Greenlandic,
and Danish law.
Okay.
Then on another time, just before Pete jumped
(38:25):
on board the vessel, he was harassing the
whalers with a potato spud gun, which essentially
shot out some stink bombs.
And the stink bomb hit the side of
the vessel one time, broke apart, and the
Japanese were saying, well, that's what caused an
injury to one of the crew members.
(38:47):
And they got a little bit of a
rash under their eye.
And that's what they regarded as the more
serious allegation of assault.
Now, here's the thing.
We've got footage, and they've got footage of
that incident.
And what we see is the Japanese who
had pepper spray guns at the time, spraying
into the wind, which then backfired and went
into their face, which is what caused the
(39:07):
damage, if any.
And then when Pete Bethune launched his spud
gun, it hit a part of the vessel
that there was no one at.
And that's the crunch of the allegation that
they say someone was there, they got injured.
That's years ago, years ago.
Yeah, yeah.
And we say that- How long ago
(39:28):
did all this happen?
Well, this is all back in 2010.
2010?
I mean, this is- Yeah, 14 years.
This is so crazy, so crazy.
Michael Fujimori says, as a Japanese American, I'm
disgusted and ashamed by Japan's attempts to destroy
Paul Watson.
Wanna go back to Annie Abram.
Annie, you're very, very moved by what's happening
(39:54):
to Captain Paul Watson.
If you could speak to him and say
anything, what exactly would you say to Captain
Paul Watson?
Oh, that's hard.
There's so much I would love to say.
I would say, thank you so much for
(40:16):
dedicating 50 years of your life.
When you've had your journalism career and you
saw the urgency in our ocean life, what's
happening, which in return will destroy our planet
survivor, the survival ability.
So thank you for being our hero.
(40:39):
Thank you for dedicating your life, 50 years
of your life.
You need to be honoured.
And I appreciate you endlessly.
We owe you our life, our oxygen.
55% of our oxygen comes from the
ocean.
He's been protecting this by protecting the whales.
And I'm ashamed to say, I recently learned
(41:00):
about the whales, that each whale contains 1
,500 mature tree carbon, each one whale.
This is a forest.
We're talking about Amazon, that people break hell
for it.
We're talking about each whale, 1,500 mature
tree carbon sequester.
(41:22):
And their poo and pee is food for
the phytoplankton, sea moss and seaweed.
Phytoplankton is what we need for the oxygen,
comes from the ocean.
And it's amazing, amazing how much he's been
doing.
Can't thank him enough.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And let me ask you, Omar, to that
(41:42):
point, how important are the whales to our
survivability?
Now, I personally believe whales are entitled to
their lives, and it doesn't matter what they
provide in terms of carbon capture or whatever.
These are sentient beings who have a right
to live in our ocean.
(42:03):
And we have, as a species, declared war
on them.
And thank God, most countries have stopped killing
the whales.
But to Annie's point, for those who may
not be motivated by compassion, why should we
care?
Well, if you'd like to breathe air, you
(42:24):
should care.
Essentially, it's the ocean that provides the oxygen
we breathe, more than anything else.
A healthy ocean and the biodiversity that goes
with it, which includes whales, which are the
farmers of the sea.
They poop out a lot of poo that
goes down with a lot of iron content,
the phytoplanktons and the krill, everything eats all
that, and then it goes in a circular
(42:44):
fashion and creates the oxygen we breathe.
In fact, more or less more recently, if
we didn't have whaling as an issue, which
Paul wants to finish in his lifetime, wants
to make sure it goes away in his
lifetime, the next sort of things we're gonna
be looking at is making sure krill and
phytoplankton are protected in the oceans, because that
(43:07):
is really the lifeline to our species.
I mean, you can like whales or not
like whales, but we all like air to
breathe.
So essentially, it's part of our lungs.
The whales are the farmers of the sea
that protect and farm oxygen for us to
live as a species.
Now, if you can't find that important enough,
(43:27):
well, we're doomed.
So essentially, that's my argument that we need
to make sure that we have oxygen to
breathe, and they are the ones that filter
it out.
Plus, as you mentioned earlier on, they're carbon
sequesters as well.
How are the whales doing?
Obviously, they were hunted for centuries, used for
(43:48):
fuel, used for...
At one point, humans ate them.
That's no longer the case, almost entirely eliminated,
which makes this Japanese whaling campaign so idiotic,
let's just say.
But how are the whales doing?
Are they on the verge of extinction?
(44:09):
Does it depend on which species of whale?
Can you give us the, yeah, the update
on that?
Yeah, the indication is that whale populations have
recovered somewhat, somewhat.
They're certainly not at their all-time highs
before whaling started, but they've recovered.
I mean, certainly, yeah, there's more fin whales
up north now.
(44:31):
There's more whales in the Antarctica, which of
course is going to be the Japanese argument
if they do go down there.
There's plenty more whales down there.
So they're recovering, but at the same time,
we've got so many other mixtures of complexities
adding to this now, you know, plastics in
the ocean.
And what they're discovering is, is whales have
digested more plastics than ever.
And that has an effect that we're not
(44:52):
sure about.
It's probably like the equivalency of, you know,
people starting to figure out in the 60s
and 70s that maybe smoking is not bad
for you.
But then later on, we discover it was
catastrophic for cancer problems.
While we think that plastics in the oceans
affecting a growing whale population, you know, maybe
down the road going to cause us problems
we can't even foresee yet.
(45:12):
So there's, you know, and there's also the
fact that, you know, the fish stocks are
still being depleted.
So the imbalance of things is the problem.
So whale populations might be on the recovery
in comparison to before whaling started.
But when you add plastics and you add
whale stocks, are being depleted still, which means
the whales have less to eat, which means
(45:33):
the whale population will hit a ceiling quicker
on population levels than they would have say,
a couple of hundred years ago.
These other mitigating circumstances that may stop whale
populations recovering totally.
So while there's signs of positivity, there's also
a lot of red flags ahead, I think
that we have to keep an eye on.
(45:54):
So again, for those joining us, we're talking
to Omar Todd, the head of the Paul
Watson Foundation, who's joining us live from London
while we're here in Los Angeles about the
imprisonment of Captain Paul Watson.
Now he has asked France for asylum.
(46:15):
He wrote a letter directly to President Macron.
What's happening with that?
I know there's protests in France.
There's also protests in Belgium.
Is there any chance that President Macron of
France will grant that asylum?
Well, one of the ministers on television a
couple of days ago, I think it was
a minister of immigration.
(46:36):
I think it was that.
He actually said he wouldn't be positive if
Paul got naturalisation.
So we think it's a strong possibility.
We hope that's the case.
We don't know the answer yet.
Lamia Somali, the president of the ship of
France, has been heading that up.
(46:59):
They've pulled out all the stops in France
to get Paul released.
They've used diplomats.
They had the former diplomat to Denmark involved
on the highest level.
They've been petitioning Denmark continuously from all the
different departments.
So the pressure is very high from France.
And Macron's also made positive statements about Paul's
(47:22):
situation.
So fingers crossed.
His family's currently resigning in France as well.
So that'd be a perfect place for him
to return to.
And in France, Paul's very well respected.
I mean, he's well known.
He's done a lot of TV appearances there.
And the French have got the second largest
(47:44):
jurisdiction of ocean management in the world.
So there's some big positives, Paul going to
France.
But of course, he's obviously a US and
Canadian citizen too.
So we hope it will lead to something,
but we don't know yet.
And we are eagerly, eagerly waiting for an
answer on that.
(48:05):
Here's what James Cameron, the famed film director,
has to say.
The people who defend our life support system
should be celebrated, not arrested.
The legendary activist, Captain Paul Watson, has stood
up for the oceans for decades.
He goes where no one else will to
enforce international conservation law and protect the sea
life that holds our planet in balance.
(48:25):
Captain Watson was arrested by Danish authorities.
This was posted a while ago in Greenland,
where he waits a decision on whether he
is extradited to Japan for sentencing.
I'm joining the international community and calling on
Denmark to issue his immediate release.
So what is Denmark doing about the overwhelming
(48:49):
international disgust over their situation?
There's been protests in LA.
There's been protests in Paris.
There's been protests in Belgium.
Famous people like James Cameron and Dr. Jane
Goodall and Piers Brosnan and the leaders of
rock bands, the lead singers, I mean, people
(49:10):
are outraged.
I don't understand why Denmark, which I think
values its reputation.
I mean, just, I've been to Denmark and
their recycling will blow your mind.
I wanted to take photos of how incredible
their recycling process was to bring back here
(49:30):
and tell people, let's get with it, people
on the recycling.
It seems like Denmark is so progressive.
It strikes me as bizarre that they are
taking this stance.
I don't, I still don't quite get it.
Omar, is there something I'm missing?
No, we've had countless discussions amongst ourselves on
(49:51):
the optics of this.
The optics is very bad for Denmark.
The longer they hold him, the worse it
looks for them.
And the repercussions on their reputation is going
to catch up to them if they continue
to hold him.
If they extradite him, that'll even be worse.
The best thing they can do to make
this problem go away is to release him.
And I am stunned that they haven't yet.
(50:14):
I think it's, whoever's in charge, I think
it's a poor decision.
I mean, I watch, I see the President
Met's Instagram account and you have a look
at it, right?
It's progressive, you know, she supports minority groups.
She's very environmental and conscious.
What are they thinking?
And in Paul's essentially, in the hands of
(50:34):
this young 30s plus year old minister of
justice, his hands at the moment, who for
whatever reason can't make his mind up, which
should be a very, very easy decision to
make.
You know, they don't have to follow this
extradition request.
It is a request.
It's not a demand.
So why are they doing it?
Good question.
I wish I knew.
(50:55):
And again, they're siding with Japanese law against
international treaties that say that whaling is a
big no-no.
So that strikes me as really bizarre.
And I keep seeing the phrase Faroe Islands
pop up.
I want to confess, I'm not exactly sure
(51:17):
where it fits in with this story.
Can you give me the 30 second elevator
on that?
Well, the Faroe Islands are northwest of England.
There are small group islands, one of the
highest GDPs in Europe.
They're a protectorate again, under the Danish government.
So if you look on that map there,
you can see England there.
(51:38):
And there's this tiny little dot up north
of England on the sort of northwest, just
between Iceland and England.
And that's the Faroe Islands.
Beautiful islands, amazing territory in terms of views
and, you know, cruises stop by there.
Very modern society.
But what they do all year round is
(51:59):
they have this effectively a blood sport.
They would argue it's for sussicence, you know,
like an Indigenous sussicence for food, which is
ridiculous.
But they hear about some whales coming in,
you know, to the area.
And then they get these little boats and
herd these, you know, 100 to 60, 70,
100, 200 whales into their ford.
(52:20):
And then they basically all run down there
and slaughter them with these corkscrew devices, knives,
and they get the kids to come down.
They all turn up in their brand new
Mercedes and BMWs.
And it's illegal to intervene.
Now, Sea Shepherd UK, Sea Shepherd France, and
(52:41):
now obviously the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, we've
been in opposition for that for years.
And this is another really peculiar little country.
And the Faroe Islands are controlled by Denmark?
They are part of Denmark?
It's an independent, autonomous country again.
But if you go there with your...
(53:02):
Yes, if you go there to defend the
whales though, it's the Danish Navy that will
turn up.
Okay, so that's why Denmark is doing it.
Correct.
So you've got a Danish Navy defending whale
killers that under Danish law is illegal.
And yet the Faroese get all the benefits
of an EU country that's in the EU,
but not in the EU.
(53:23):
So they get all the subsidies to build
all their tunnels and infrastructure and stuff.
It's a complete disaster.
And it's optically looks very bad for Denmark.
And I don't know why Denmark doesn't do
something about it, all to keep a few
people in their blood sport happy.
And it's very few people.
We can't point the finger at another country
when here in the United States, you're in
England.
(53:44):
I know there's been a big reduction in
hunting, but still there are fox hunts.
And I see the news all the time
on people, they're called hunt saboteurs.
They try to stop the hunting.
And here we have, people love to use
guns and say, well, we don't want to
(54:05):
kill people.
And we certainly don't, but it's okay to
kill animals.
And I don't believe that for a second.
So before we point fingers at another country,
we would have to look in the mirror
and say, what's our country doing?
And unfortunately, blood sport is part of the
human condition at this point.
(54:26):
Let's hope we evolve past it.
This has been such a fascinating conversation.
I want to say, Omar, I know you're
a very busy man and you are working
around the clock to free Captain Paul Watson.
And I want to thank you for taking
the time to tell our American audience, bring
us up to date on this horror show
(54:49):
and tell people what to do.
Please, if you are listening or watching, or
both, go to the Paul Watson Foundation.
It's paulwatsonfoundation.org.
The easiest to remember, paulwatsonfoundation.org and sign
the petition to demand the immediate release of
Paul Watson.
I did it last night.
(55:10):
It takes literally 45 seconds.
And I also want to thank Annie Abram,
who has organised several protests here in Los
Angeles to speak up for Paul Watson outside
Danish government offices here in Los Angeles.
And that's happening around the world.
(55:31):
So I very much appreciate all of your
efforts.
Everybody together, I think we can free Captain
Paul Watson.
And as far as what we do here
at Unchained TV, I really urge you to
download our app.
We are the only vegan animal rights streaming
(55:54):
television network with free content.
You can download us on your phone, on
any TV with streaming devices, and you can
also go to unchainedtv.com.
So it's a vegan Netflix.
Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
I love Unchained TV.
Unchained, Unchained TV.
Your life will change.
It's just that easy.
(56:14):
Unchained TV has all sorts of content for
everybody.
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Unchained TV is my go-to.
Unchained TV.
Who knew?
Streaming network, Jane Velez Mitchell.
You're about to hear a secret solution to
the problems that plague our world.
If you want to revolutionise your health, get
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simple choice.
Now, here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell.
We have breaking news for you in the
(00:23):
battle to free Captain Paul Watson.
This 73-year-old anti-whaling hero is
the subject of demonstrations around the world.
People who are outraged that the whale war
star and founder of Sea Shepherd, Captain Paul
(00:43):
Watson, has been imprisoned in Greenland since July.
This anti-whaling hero has applied for political
asylum in France as he fights off attempts
by Japan to get him extradited to that
nation where he could end up behind bars
for 15 years.
And he just wants to stop the gruesome
(01:04):
slaughter of whales that Japan is engaging in.
Activists around the world are demanding that Watson
be released immediately with protests from Los Angeles
to France, outside Danish government offices.
Watson was first arrested back in July when
his ship docked in Greenland.
(01:26):
And Greenland is a very, very large country,
but very sparsely populated that's part of the
kingdom of Denmark.
Danish authorities are still deciding whether to extradite
him.
And Japan is one of the few nations
that is still engaging in whaling.
We are so excited to have with us
(01:51):
today a man who is the CEO of
the Paul Watson Foundation, Omar Todd.
Omar, thank you for joining us live from
London.
What is the very latest when it comes
to Paul Watson?
How is he doing?
(02:12):
Well, thanks for having me on your show.
How is he doing?
I think now he's getting a little fed
up with the process of the slowness of
the wheels of justice that aren't turning too
quickly.
He's resolute though, strong, determined, but at the
same time, obviously he's missing his wife and
(02:35):
two kids and his family in general.
But at the same time, he's strong as
I've ever seen.
He's the most upbeat out of all of
us, actually.
He's a man of great courage, strength, but
he is frustrated a little bit at the
court system.
I mean, we've had now six or so,
or at least four or five now sort
of adjournments and remands continuously.
(02:58):
And, you know, so it's getting a bit
frustrated now from the day he was sort
of arrested back in the 21st of July.
Here's what I don't understand.
I don't understand the story at all.
Why is Denmark siding with Japan?
Japan is one of the few countries left
on earth that is still engaging in whaling.
(03:19):
And from what I read, there's actually an
international treaty against whaling.
So I don't get why Denmark is going
along with what Japan wants.
I would think Denmark, who's generally considered a
very progressive country, big on environmentalism, big on
(03:40):
sustainability.
Why would they go along with this horrific
plan by Japan to continue whaling?
And apparently they have a brand new whaling
ship that they wanna have some fun with
by going out there and killing a bunch
of whales.
What's in it for Denmark?
Well, that's a conundrum, isn't it?
(04:01):
That's the paradox of it all.
I mean, here you have an EU country.
We're under EU regulations.
Whaling is illegal.
Backing up a extradition request of a country
that's on the other side of the planet
that continues to whale.
And we think it comes down to a
couple of factors.
(04:21):
One, we don't know the real mystery, but
we can only speculate.
We think it originated from the Faroe Islands,
which is another small group of islands under
the Danish rule nearby, who you may or
may not have heard have had this Grindelup
thing where they herd pilot whales into their
(04:41):
little fords and kill them.
And we think they are the ones that
notified the Danish authorities that Paul was on
his way via the Northwest Passage to go
to the Pacific Ocean with the vessel, the
JPD, to interfere with the Japanese whaling there
in one way or another.
(05:03):
An operation was announced called Operation Kangimaru.
And because of that, because of that, on
or around in March, April, the Japanese basically
reignited an old Interpol Red Notice against Paul,
(05:24):
but only to the Danish government.
Based on the information, the Faroese fed them.
And when Paul landed on the JPD in
Nuuk, Greenland, there was, I believe there was
14 special forces that jumped on police officers
that arrested Paul and took him away.
So one has to ask, why would they
(05:47):
do this?
What's in it for Denmark?
I mean, here you have a progressive prime
minister.
She's very pro-environment.
Denmark's known to be a progressive, law-abiding
society.
And then you have this whaling issue.
And optically, it does not do them any
favours at all to continue this narrative with
(06:09):
holding Paul on, which by the way, the
charges, the alleged charges, which amount to malicious
damage, looting, hooligism and assault as maltreatment, which
he didn't actually do.
One of the crew members who did these
things, he's been labelled to be the conspiracy
(06:31):
as part of the charges.
And this has caused all this drama when
the actual allegations themselves are minor fines in
both Greenland, the Denmark, and even two out
of three of them in Japan.
So essentially, these charges and allegations are very
(06:52):
flimsy in themselves.
And then, so you've got Denmark applying this
extradition request for charges that are really flimsy.
And here it gets even worse, that when
we go to these court sessions to discuss
the extradition, that they won't allow the evidence
that clearly shows from the TV show, Wow
Wars, that these particular charges, particularly the aggravated
(07:16):
assault aspect, which is the one they're really
focussing on, it shows that where the stink
bomb was thrown, where it hits the ship
on the, I think it's this starboard side,
there was no one there, but they won't
accept that evidence in court, but they have
allowed the prosecution to show their video evidence,
but not the defence to show the evidence.
So why are they doing it?
(07:38):
Well, we think there must be some economic
aspect to it that we don't know.
Now, we believe the Japanese went to Greenland
in December, 2023, and perhaps there was trade
arrangements done there, obviously, and there's obviously the
aspect where the Faroese are also a whaling
(07:58):
nation under the Danish government.
So it has to be that.
It has to be the Faroese, and it
has to be something going on in terms
of trade.
That's what our speculation is.
So if you're upset about this, as so
many people are, you can go to paulwatsonfoundation
.org, and the gentleman we're speaking with live
from London is the CEO of the paulwatsonfoundation
(08:21):
.org, and you can sign the petition to
demand the immediate release of Paul Watson.
I did it yesterday.
It takes literally 30 seconds.
More than 200,000 people have signed this
petition.
And as you can see on the bottom
left, if you're watching, you can donate as
well.
(08:41):
And if you're just listening, you can still
do all of this.
Go to paulwatsonfoundation.org.
Once again, that's paulwatsonfoundation.org, and with the
click of a button, you can sign the
petition to demand the immediate release of Paul
Watson.
If you feel like it, you can make
a donation.
And many, many famous people, including, well, James
(09:05):
Bond, Pierce Brosnan, have taken photos of themselves
with hashtag free paulwatson, so you can also
do that.
We have Jane Goodall demanding, Dr. Jane Goodall,
the famous primatologist, demanding the immediate release of
Captain Paul Watson, saying, Captain Watson is simply
(09:28):
taking action to try to prevent the inhumane
practise of killing whales, which most countries have
banned decades ago.
In so doing, he's expressing the anger of
thousands of people in many countries who absolutely
support his moral courage in not only speaking
out on behalf of the whales, but taking
action.
So many leaders have done this.
(09:49):
I wanna go to Annie Abram, who has
facilitated protests in Los Angeles.
Tell us about the protests that you've helped
organise, Annie, in support of Captain Paul Watson.
Thank you, Jane, and hi, great to see
you, Omar.
Samaria, Sam Marie and Michael Fujimori, who had
(10:13):
been, Sam Marie had been doing it up
north, obviously, the protests, and we've been doing
it here with Michael Fujimori and my little
baby.
We're going on doing these protests.
We've done five protests so far, and each
time there was an extension.
The reason we're doing this, because this is
a planetary issue.
(10:34):
It's far more than just Paul Watson.
Paul Watson is the hero who had been
protecting our ocean or sea life.
By protecting sea life, he also stood for
the seals that have been killed, but the
whales themselves, I've done research.
I am shocked how amazing this man is
protecting our planet by protecting the whales, which
(10:56):
is protecting the sea.
As he says, when the seas die, we
all die.
Absolutely, and you can see the bloody mess
that it is involved in whaling from these
photos provided by paulwatsonfoundation.org.
It has no place in the civilised world,
and you know what?
Paul Watson, as we know from whale wars,
(11:18):
yes, he is in your face, and the
reason is that if you're not in their
face, you can't stop whaling.
Writing a nice letter to Japan and saying,
hey, you don't eat whale meat very much
anymore.
There's really no purpose.
We don't need to whale for fuel.
There's no reason for it.
(11:40):
There's no excuse for it.
There's no justification for it.
Have you tried to reach Japan itself?
Because I know the people of Japan are
compassionate.
This is the government.
This is follow the money.
Why is Japan so hell bent on whaling
in the 21st century when obviously it's something
that belongs in the dustbin of history?
(12:02):
Omar.
Well, it comes down to jobs for retiring
politicians, essentially.
So less than 2% of the Japanese
market that whaling whale meat is marketed to,
no one eats it there anymore, particularly the
young people who aren't interested.
So why do they have whaling?
Well, they built this $48 million Citation Death
(12:23):
Star, the new factory ship, you know, and
they have to justify it operating, you know,
it's been built for long range.
So we know at some stage that they
probably will go down to the Southern Ocean
again.
And why, you know, and these, if you've
actually been there, I've been there and I've
been to where the actual whaling fishing villages
(12:43):
originate from in a shimmery area and all
this regional coastal area, the towns are dying
there.
And essentially there's only fishing left.
And then you've got older legislators that are
retiring.
And what do they do once they retire?
Well, as you can see with the current
Japanese politics, there's a lot of scandals going
on.
They tend to essentially prop up industries that
(13:05):
they've got an interest in or their forefathers
or they're traditionally done, which is of course
in this case whaling.
And they go to these, they leave their
offices and then go to these particular jobs
and they get subsidised by the government and
it continues to keep them obviously employed in
one way or another.
So that's essentially why we think they do
it.
(13:25):
I mean, at long-term, I don't think
it's going to be something that's sustainable for
them once the younger population gets older and
realises what's going on.
But for now they have vested heavily into
it.
And obviously once they heard Paul Watson was
coming over with his vessels again, they did
everything and they could to try to stop
(13:48):
that.
And that is obviously why they reignited this
old warrant around the end of March, 2024.
And they're going to try to keep him
in remand for as long as possible.
I mean, he's just hit over a hundred
days now.
So we've had a 15th of August, 4th
of September, 2nd of October, 23rd of October,
and the next one's on the 13th of
(14:09):
November.
They've run out of excuses to hold him.
Under typical detention, you wouldn't even be held
for these charges.
So the law has not been applied here
at all.
The Japanese foreign minister about a week ago
said this is all about the law, not
about the issue of whaling.
But that's absolute nonsense because you have the
Japanese contravening the law, the International Court of
(14:32):
Justice ruling, the Australian Federal Court of ruling.
They're down there in the Southern Ocean, not
even in their own waters whaling.
And this is what Paul's being charged for
when we shouldn't have been down there at
the time.
Well, at the stage of the Sea Shepherd
vessels, it should have been other countries enforcing
the rule of law down there, but they
didn't.
And Paul often says that if, well, we
shouldn't be in these places, someone should be
(14:53):
enforcing the laws that are being passed.
And if they won't do it, we have
to do it.
And here he is having to defend himself
for essentially following the law and pushing the
Japanese issue into the light of day and
being now arrested for something that they claim
(15:14):
is against the law based in Japanese law
on board their own vessel rather than the
international law at the sea.
That is so crazy.
They're siding with Japanese law over international law
when Paul Watson is defending the international law
against whaling.
Let's hear from Paul Watson himself.
(15:36):
If I die in a Japanese prison, how
will Denmark explain that?
How will they rationalise their decision if that
happens?
The extermination of entire families from unborn foetuses
to the largest whales in the pod, entire
families wiped out.
There are no survivors.
(15:57):
It has no place in the 21st century.
It has no place in the civilised world.
International outrage has erupted over the arrest of
Captain Paul Watson, famed anti-whaling activist who
faces possible extradition from Greenland to Japan, and
fears are growing for his safety.
Because of people like Captain Paul Watson bringing
(16:17):
awareness to the public about what's going on
in the Faroe Islands.
I'm hoping that all the people who didn't
sign the petition will continue to support that
cause.
So are you able to talk to him?
Have you, do you, how do you do
it?
Do you do it with FaceTime or phone?
And how is he holding up?
He's 73 years old being in jail in
(16:40):
Greenland, which is a very remote place.
Psychologically, physically, emotionally, this has gotta be hell
for him.
Yeah, look, initially when he was arrested, we
had some comfort knowing that Nuuk itself is
a fairly new facility.
It's a prison of about 48 or so
prisoners.
(17:00):
In fact, you can watch an episode on
Netflix and see what the prison's like itself.
And we thought, well, okay, it's not too
bad.
They were reasonably friendly to begin with.
We can go and visit him.
We could call him on the telephone.
And when I did go and visit him,
eventually, it was, you could ring up in
the morning and you book an employment, you
(17:20):
go and see him, you got a couple
of hours.
But they do, when I went inside and
had a look around, I was like, okay,
this is real jail.
This is not mucking around.
He's really in proper high security remand facility.
He's in a wing of about nine people
of which none now speak English.
So he's got no one to talk to
at all.
He's got, we have tried getting him a
(17:42):
typewriter.
We've tried getting him permission to get a
computer that's obviously not connected to the internet
just so we can type and write, but
they've denied all of that.
And so essentially he can get letters written
and sent to him.
And as time went on, what we discovered
is that more and more, that became a
little bit more restrictive.
So we couldn't reach him anymore until about
(18:03):
a couple of weeks ago.
We now can no longer call him.
Only he gets one call a week from
his family and only the registered Danish lawyers
can call him.
So that's made it super awkward and difficult
for us to have here on the outside
to try to communicate with him.
And I think that's because they have been
(18:23):
overwhelmed by the support he has.
And obviously maybe there's been talk behind the
scenes, making things more difficult because they don't
want him to continue to operate business as
usual in terms of the foundation or other
operations.
And I think they're just trying to make
things more difficult, isolating more.
But yeah, so he's getting a little frustrated.
(18:44):
We're a little frustrated.
We were assured for some time now that
against, under Danish law, this is very unusual
because there's not many precedents involved, but he
should have been out by now.
I mean, they should have made a decision.
So this is sort of how it works.
So you get the receipt of Japan for
the formal attrition request to the Danish government.
And then the case is transferred from the
(19:08):
Danish Ministry of Justice to the Greenlandic Police
Authority.
Then the police authority then investigate the provisions
and the extradition request to recommend whether to
exodite him or not.
At this stage, we're waiting for that recommendation.
And then the review from the Minister of
Justice in Denmark will read the recommendation and
(19:28):
decide or not whether to exodite Paul or
not.
If that happens, of course, we will immediately
do an appeal.
And then it goes to the Supreme Court
in Denmark, and then it goes to the
International Court of Human Rights, and it just
continues from there.
And that's gonna be a long time.
But really, we are hoping that they come
to their senses and just release him and
(19:48):
basically ignore the Japanese request for extradition because
it's essentially a death sentence for Paul.
And they need to understand that.
And I think that the world is trying
to make them understand that.
So, it is our hope he will be
released on the 13th of November.
But based on what we've seen so far,
(20:09):
we just don't know.
Yeah, and by the way, people who are
signing the petition are posting on various social
media that they're watching that they have signed
the petition.
Nilo Farr said, I just added my name,
so I'm urging everybody.
I signed last night while I was researching
the story.
It takes literally 10 seconds.
(20:31):
You just go to the paulwatsonfoundation.org, Paul
Watson, W-A-T-S-O-N, foundation
.org, and click to add your name.
You can also make a donation.
And Nilo Farr is also asking, what would
Japanese prison look like for Paul Watson?
They have a brutal record, not on par
with developing nations.
(20:52):
And we've also heard that same theme echoed
by some other activists who say that he
could really be brutalised if he ends up
in a Japanese prison.
You've said it could be a death sentence.
He's 73 years old.
Are you just saying that because of his
(21:13):
age or because Japan has been at war
with Paul Watson for so long?
I mean, I shudder to think what could
happen to him.
Well, essentially, if you're charged in Japan, you're
guilty.
It has a 99.7% chance of
a conviction rate.
And the reason being is if you're charged,
you're guilty.
Now, the process to fight those charges, whatever
(21:34):
they are, is long and quite exhausting.
You'll usually take up to two years before
you see a judge to fight your case.
And of course, the honour system there prevents,
the prosecutor will be questioned, why is this
person defending himself in the first place?
So there's that part of the Japanese rule
of law.
There's plenty on YouTube and Netflix about the
(21:56):
Japanese rule of law and how brutal their
justice system is.
And then you have a look at, okay,
he's got his age and then it's Paul
himself.
So the moment he gets extradited there, essentially
he'll be poorly treated in much more discomfort
and he won't break.
He won't break.
So what are they gonna do with someone
who won't break?
(22:16):
Well, they'll keep him there and they'll make
it uncomfortable for him as possible.
And that's what we're facing.
And I know he won't, he will never
capitulate.
He will never do anything that will compromise
his stance and his views because that's the
sort of man he is.
He sticks to it.
So that means there's no way out for
him.
(22:36):
And if that's no way out, then he
will be suffering up to 15 years of
jail, which is what this alleged charge can
possibly carry up to.
And as a 73-year-old man, well,
you do the sums.
Well, once again, if you're just joining us,
Omar Todd, the head of the Paul Watson
Foundation is joining us live from London.
(22:58):
And we are so honoured to speak with
him.
Paul Watson has been behind bars for more
than 100 days.
And this is creating just a global sense
of outrage.
I'm wondering if it could backfire.
And in his own way, this sort of
martyrdom of Paul Watson being the best thing
(23:22):
that ever happened to the whales.
I mean, it's not in the news day
in and day out.
Unfortunately, the news media doesn't cover these issues.
Our seas are dying, as he has pointed
out.
The most important thing we can do is
preserve our seas.
When the oceans go, we go.
Could this wake people up, given that so
(23:43):
many famous people, Jane Goodall has spoken out,
Rick O'Berry has spoken out, Pierce Brosnan,
007 has spoken out.
It's a lot of people.
Could this have an unintended effect and backfire
on the Japanese, Omar?
(24:05):
Well, look, Paul often told me that what
we do, we don't do for anyone else.
We don't do it for humans.
We do it for the whales.
We do it for the clients.
And the clients is the ocean, the seals,
the dolphins, the whales.
So his view would probably be along the
lines of, look, I'm sitting in here and
this has turned in itself a campaign.
(24:25):
This campaign of him being inside prison now
has brought more awareness back into whaling than
it may have done if we had campaigned
with the ship over in the Pacific Ocean,
engaging Japan.
So he views this as always in a
positive light.
And he feels that this has brought attention
to an issue which was sort of dying
(24:49):
down the last few years.
And some people said, oh, Paul is an
elderly statesman now.
He shouldn't be out there.
And perhaps it's his twilight.
Well, we discovered it's not his twilight years
at all.
He's bigger than ever.
He's more important than ever.
And as much as it could backfire, we've
seen the European Parliament discuss the possible extradition
(25:10):
of Paul and the majority are against it.
We had just 21 ministers of parliament in
the Australian parliament last week sign a letter
to the Danish prime minister advocating for Paul's
release.
The Great Escape Festival just withdrew from the
Faroe Islands recently in protest and Paul's just
been given the Perfect World Foundation Award for
(25:31):
2025.
So in his view, that this has brought
the issue back into the light.
And we often get people to sign waivers
when they join our crew.
If you join with us, the Captain Paul
Watson Foundation, are you prepared to die for
a whale?
Because that's essentially what people volunteer for.
And if they're not, then they shouldn't join
(25:52):
our crew.
So Paul's leading that front and centre and
saying to the world, well, look, I'm in
here for a reason.
I shouldn't be here.
The world should do something about it, but
I'm here for a reason.
So he doesn't think past that.
He's there for a reason, for the position
he stands for.
(26:13):
And it's up to us as a society
to do something about it and react in
the right way.
Now, whether we win against Japan in this
case, we don't know, but it doesn't stop
us trying.
And we think you've got to do something
anyway.
You can't just sit back and compromise your
views if it gets hard.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
And Paul will be the first to say
(26:34):
that.
And so, hat off to the guy.
He's sitting there, he's doing, he's holding this
entire campaign on his shoulders, everything.
So the least we can do is try
to get him out.
And that's what we're going to continue to
do.
Well, anybody who's ever seen whale wars should
know that this is not the type of
(26:55):
guy to crumble and go, oh, I give
up.
I mean, he is one of the fiercest
activists.
And again, for those who might say, well,
you know, he's fighting them on the high
seas.
Yeah, because that's the only thing that's going
to save these whales.
It's not asking nicely.
Everybody's asked nicely.
(27:15):
If writing letters and asking nicely and being
polite would save the whales, we wouldn't be
here right now.
If several people are saying that they've signed,
I'm urging everybody to do what I did,
sign.
It takes five seconds.
Just go to the paulwatsonfoundation.org.
Let us know if you've signed.
And just put it on social media.
(27:38):
paulwatsonfoundation.org, it's right there.
You can't miss it.
It just says, sign the petition, click.
You can also donate.
So people are saying, Pete, please post the
link.
There it is, right there.
The link is paulwatsonfoundation.org.
It is a website, paulwatsonfoundation.org.
By the way, it has extraordinary articles and
(27:58):
a slew of videos about this.
Antonio Diaz says, I signed, Ilofar has signed.
Yes, Tiffany Brunelli has signed.
So please sign, that's super, super important.
And people are saying, well, he's 73 years
old, but that's young for a vegan.
(28:19):
I just wonder how they're dealing with that
as well.
I mean, just the food that he might,
I've heard many stories of people who are
plant-based being in prison and behind bars
and basically, oh, here, you want vegan food?
Here's a roll and that's it.
Or here's a piece of toast and that's
(28:40):
it.
And they're not even given sustenance, as it
were.
I mean, on that basic physical level, is
he holding up?
Yeah, so in this particular prison, which again
is why we were all things considered, happy
we was in that particular prison, was they
get to go shopping on a Wednesday once
a week in a little internal shop and
(29:02):
he gets to pick out his own food.
So he gets to cook for himself in
a communal kitchen, two to three times a
day, although he's just going for breakfast and
dinner at the moment.
And he has lost weight, but he's eating
vegan food there and he's happy to prepare
his own food.
So that's one of the pros, I guess.
But look, the place is very remote.
It's like going to the moon.
(29:22):
I mean, Newt Airport itself had its international
airport status revoked recently.
You know, you got to go there on
a dash eight.
It's complicated.
There's always weather problems.
It's a very expensive place to go.
So he's very isolated there.
So we try to keep a revolving door
of people heading his way there.
(29:43):
You know, and also Seaship of France, which
is one of the original Seaship entities that
Paul is still part of here.
They've been first and foremost, front and centre
in the defence of Paul as well.
And France has been a great advocate for
that with President Macron pushing, as you said,
for his release.
(30:03):
Plus Paul's applied for political asylum and naturalisation
now.
So we'll see how that goes and we
hope that goes in a positive direction.
So all these things add up pressure, but
he is isolated, but he's fine.
He is eating the food, the right food,
but you know, the communication is difficult.
The place is difficult and he shouldn't be
there.
And I think over 120 days, he then
(30:26):
exceeds his prior detention time in the past.
And after that, he'll be longer in jail
than any other time in his life.
So all for an allegation of a country
for essentially finable offences in any other jurisdiction.
I mean, this is crazy.
I mean, here you've got Interpol, right?
Interpol's a system that has a constitution.
(30:48):
If you look into it, it's not supposed
to be used for political detention, but quite
a few people on the Interpol Red List
are there for political persecution and he's one
of them.
And so I think Interpol has questions to
answer as well, as well as how this
happened, as well as, you know, Japan answering
questions, but Japan won't answer any questions, but
(31:09):
certainly we're putting pressure on the Danish to
explain themselves.
So, you know, if you're a Denmark citizen,
you know, write to your local ministers and
ask why is he held.
If you're obviously in France as well, you
can also try to get hold of Interpol
because Interpol's based in France.
So we're following that up ourselves as well.
I have to say, I was completely ignorant
(31:30):
of Greenland until about an hour and a
half ago when I started to say to
myself, you know what, I should look up
Greenland and see where it is and there
it is.
I was stunned by how big Greenland is.
I mean, look at the United States on
the left and Europe on the right.
So I found out that Greenland is the
largest island in the world, by the way.
(31:52):
It's a self-governing territory of Denmark, the
12th largest country in the world by size,
almost four times the size of France and
slightly more than three times the United States
state of Texas.
So three times the size of Texas.
I mean, it's massive, but it's very sparsely
(32:16):
populated.
In 2015, it was just like 57,000
people or something really crazy small.
So I'm wondering if the politics of this
particular region played into it.
I do know that politicians sometimes use the
(32:40):
indigenous culture as an excuse for whaling.
And that does not mean the indigenous people
themselves are saying, go out and do this.
It means that cynical politicians turn around and
they use whatever levers they can to justify
and follow the money.
Can you weigh in on that, Omar?
(33:01):
Yeah, so when he was originally arrested, we
had a discussion amongst ourselves on, should we
focus the pressure on Greenland or the Danes?
And we decided in the end, it was
the Danish government that we had to apply
pressure on, mostly because the prosecutor and the
14 federal police came from Denmark.
(33:22):
And the Greenlandic people themselves, when we arrived,
were very friendly and have been continuously being
friendly.
So, and certainly I'll give you one little
bit of story that Paul's inside and initially
we were quite concerned that with the indigenous
and sort of anti-whaling views Paul would
have, that he might be seen as public
(33:44):
enemy number one inside.
So we were quite concerned, but as it
turns out, they actually have heard of him
and he's the most well-recognised person and
celebrity that they've ever had in there.
And that we actually got them copies of
Wild Wars and they all started watching it.
And so Paul walks around inside and actually
gets a lot of people shouting out that
they support him.
So even though they can't speak in English
(34:05):
or anything else, they support him.
So I don't think, I think Greenland's moving
on.
When I was there, what I didn't notice
was an enormous amounts of construction work going
on.
They're even building a new airport.
So I think, you know, with the event
of climate change, which we all know is
happening, I think there is possibly policies behind
(34:27):
the scenes that we can't quite see on
the front end that are mostly economic and
based, perhaps with the Japanese, as I mentioned,
were there with trade agreements being signed back
in December, 2023.
So there's definitely something going on.
And it was particularly peculiar, even though the
prosecutor was from Copenhagen, the judge himself, who's
(34:51):
making the current rules to remand Paul is
a local judge.
And each time Paul's been remanded longer, we
have immediately appealed to the high court, which
is done via email in Greenland, oddly enough.
And each time they've upheld the court's decision
to keep him in remand.
Now that's on Greenland.
So why is that judge holding Paul?
(35:12):
Why is that judge not allowing us to
look at the evidence from our side, which
instantly exonerates Paul, instantly.
Like you just can't go, okay, well, he
didn't throw it.
And even his crew member who threw it
didn't hit anybody.
So that's the allegation.
There's not enough evidence.
What's the bottom line allegation that he threw?
(35:32):
The bottom line allegation is that he threw
some kind of firebomb or somebody threw a
- So another crew member called Pete Bethune,
who had his ship rammed and sunk called
the Yardigill in one of the first encounters
back in 2010, wanted to present an invoice
essentially to the Japanese vessel, that captain, for
(35:56):
his $2 million vessel that had been rammed
and sunk by the Japanese whaling vessel at
the time.
They were out of, the Yardigill was out
of fuel.
It was just sitting idle.
And the Japanese vessel came from the bow
and came up and just basically ran straight
through it and cut it in half and
then just drove off.
And there was no repercussions for the Japanese
(36:16):
at all.
Incidentally, a New Zealand investigation later released that
the Japanese were at fault, but that aside.
So that was the reason why Pete Bethune
wanted to jump on board on the whaling
vessel to present an invoice to the captain
and say, hey, look, you've damaged my vessel.
Paul famously said on a Whale Wars episode
(36:38):
that he recommended you don't do that.
And you should go back to Australia to
do media about his vessel being run over
because that would probably garner more attention.
But Pete Bethune decided to go anyway.
So in this particular moment, so there's a
number of moments that matter.
So in this particular case, he went over
there, they cut, he cut the net, which
(36:59):
is the property damage allegation, jumped on board.
Yeah, jumped on board.
Which was the trespass allegation.
And then he presented the invoice to the
captain.
Of course, they took him back to Japan.
And that's when he was held for a
number of months before he eventually, so under
the Japanese justice system, he was interrogated daily.
(37:21):
He was basically, you know- And this
is not Watson.
This is somebody else.
This is, that's right.
This is one of the, you know, the
Pete Bethune who was, well, he was a
captain of his own vessel.
So he worked with us at the time,
but he was a captain of his own
vessel that was run over by the Japanese.
He wanted to present the Japanese with an
invoice.
He did so.
And then he got hauled back to Japan
(37:43):
to face these charges.
Now, what they made him do after some
months is they got him to sign a
affidavit blaming Paul Frodell.
Then that's where you have the conspiracy aspect.
And he signed that to get out of
there.
Now he since signed an affidavit after he
got out saying that he was forced to
sign that inside so he can get out
because he, you know, he wasn't, he was
(38:05):
just going to be stuck there forever.
And so that's part of it.
And that's where the trespass, the property damage,
and those particular allegations, which are by the
way, all just finable offences under Japanese, Greenlandic,
and Danish law.
Okay.
Then on another time, just before Pete jumped
(38:25):
on board the vessel, he was harassing the
whalers with a potato spud gun, which essentially
shot out some stink bombs.
And the stink bomb hit the side of
the vessel one time, broke apart, and the
Japanese were saying, well, that's what caused an
injury to one of the crew members.
(38:47):
And they got a little bit of a
rash under their eye.
And that's what they regarded as the more
serious allegation of assault.
Now, here's the thing.
We've got footage, and they've got footage of
that incident.
And what we see is the Japanese who
had pepper spray guns at the time, spraying
into the wind, which then backfired and went
into their face, which is what caused the
(39:07):
damage, if any.
And then when Pete Bethune launched his spud
gun, it hit a part of the vessel
that there was no one at.
And that's the crunch of the allegation that
they say someone was there, they got injured.
That's years ago, years ago.
Yeah, yeah.
And we say that- How long ago
(39:28):
did all this happen?
Well, this is all back in 2010.
2010?
I mean, this is- Yeah, 14 years.
This is so crazy, so crazy.
Michael Fujimori says, as a Japanese American, I'm
disgusted and ashamed by Japan's attempts to destroy
Paul Watson.
Wanna go back to Annie Abram.
Annie, you're very, very moved by what's happening
(39:54):
to Captain Paul Watson.
If you could speak to him and say
anything, what exactly would you say to Captain
Paul Watson?
Oh, that's hard.
There's so much I would love to say.
I would say, thank you so much for
(40:16):
dedicating 50 years of your life.
When you've had your journalism career and you
saw the urgency in our ocean life, what's
happening, which in return will destroy our planet
survivor, the survival ability.
So thank you for being our hero.
(40:39):
Thank you for dedicating your life, 50 years
of your life.
You need to be honoured.
And I appreciate you endlessly.
We owe you our life, our oxygen.
55% of our oxygen comes from the
ocean.
He's been protecting this by protecting the whales.
And I'm ashamed to say, I recently learned
(41:00):
about the whales, that each whale contains 1
,500 mature tree carbon, each one whale.
This is a forest.
We're talking about Amazon, that people break hell
for it.
We're talking about each whale, 1,500 mature
tree carbon sequester.
(41:22):
And their poo and pee is food for
the phytoplankton, sea moss and seaweed.
Phytoplankton is what we need for the oxygen,
comes from the ocean.
And it's amazing, amazing how much he's been
doing.
Can't thank him enough.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And let me ask you, Omar, to that
(41:42):
point, how important are the whales to our
survivability?
Now, I personally believe whales are entitled to
their lives, and it doesn't matter what they
provide in terms of carbon capture or whatever.
These are sentient beings who have a right
to live in our ocean.
(42:03):
And we have, as a species, declared war
on them.
And thank God, most countries have stopped killing
the whales.
But to Annie's point, for those who may
not be motivated by compassion, why should we
care?
Well, if you'd like to breathe air, you
(42:24):
should care.
Essentially, it's the ocean that provides the oxygen
we breathe, more than anything else.
A healthy ocean and the biodiversity that goes
with it, which includes whales, which are the
farmers of the sea.
They poop out a lot of poo that
goes down with a lot of iron content,
the phytoplanktons and the krill, everything eats all
that, and then it goes in a circular
(42:44):
fashion and creates the oxygen we breathe.
In fact, more or less more recently, if
we didn't have whaling as an issue, which
Paul wants to finish in his lifetime, wants
to make sure it goes away in his
lifetime, the next sort of things we're gonna
be looking at is making sure krill and
phytoplankton are protected in the oceans, because that
(43:07):
is really the lifeline to our species.
I mean, you can like whales or not
like whales, but we all like air to
breathe.
So essentially, it's part of our lungs.
The whales are the farmers of the sea
that protect and farm oxygen for us to
live as a species.
Now, if you can't find that important enough,
(43:27):
well, we're doomed.
So essentially, that's my argument that we need
to make sure that we have oxygen to
breathe, and they are the ones that filter
it out.
Plus, as you mentioned earlier on, they're carbon
sequesters as well.
How are the whales doing?
Obviously, they were hunted for centuries, used for
(43:48):
fuel, used for...
At one point, humans ate them.
That's no longer the case, almost entirely eliminated,
which makes this Japanese whaling campaign so idiotic,
let's just say.
But how are the whales doing?
Are they on the verge of extinction?
(44:09):
Does it depend on which species of whale?
Can you give us the, yeah, the update
on that?
Yeah, the indication is that whale populations have
recovered somewhat, somewhat.
They're certainly not at their all-time highs
before whaling started, but they've recovered.
I mean, certainly, yeah, there's more fin whales
up north now.
(44:31):
There's more whales in the Antarctica, which of
course is going to be the Japanese argument
if they do go down there.
There's plenty more whales down there.
So they're recovering, but at the same time,
we've got so many other mixtures of complexities
adding to this now, you know, plastics in
the ocean.
And what they're discovering is, is whales have
digested more plastics than ever.
And that has an effect that we're not
(44:52):
sure about.
It's probably like the equivalency of, you know,
people starting to figure out in the 60s
and 70s that maybe smoking is not bad
for you.
But then later on, we discover it was
catastrophic for cancer problems.
While we think that plastics in the oceans
affecting a growing whale population, you know, maybe
down the road going to cause us problems
we can't even foresee yet.
(45:12):
So there's, you know, and there's also the
fact that, you know, the fish stocks are
still being depleted.
So the imbalance of things is the problem.
So whale populations might be on the recovery
in comparison to before whaling started.
But when you add plastics and you add
whale stocks, are being depleted still, which means
the whales have less to eat, which means
(45:33):
the whale population will hit a ceiling quicker
on population levels than they would have say,
a couple of hundred years ago.
These other mitigating circumstances that may stop whale
populations recovering totally.
So while there's signs of positivity, there's also
a lot of red flags ahead, I think
that we have to keep an eye on.
(45:54):
So again, for those joining us, we're talking
to Omar Todd, the head of the Paul
Watson Foundation, who's joining us live from London
while we're here in Los Angeles about the
imprisonment of Captain Paul Watson.
Now he has asked France for asylum.
(46:15):
He wrote a letter directly to President Macron.
What's happening with that?
I know there's protests in France.
There's also protests in Belgium.
Is there any chance that President Macron of
France will grant that asylum?
Well, one of the ministers on television a
couple of days ago, I think it was
a minister of immigration.
(46:36):
I think it was that.
He actually said he wouldn't be positive if
Paul got naturalisation.
So we think it's a strong possibility.
We hope that's the case.
We don't know the answer yet.
Lamia Somali, the president of the ship of
France, has been heading that up.
(46:59):
They've pulled out all the stops in France
to get Paul released.
They've used diplomats.
They had the former diplomat to Denmark involved
on the highest level.
They've been petitioning Denmark continuously from all the
different departments.
So the pressure is very high from France.
And Macron's also made positive statements about Paul's
(47:22):
situation.
So fingers crossed.
His family's currently resigning in France as well.
So that'd be a perfect place for him
to return to.
And in France, Paul's very well respected.
I mean, he's well known.
He's done a lot of TV appearances there.
And the French have got the second largest
(47:44):
jurisdiction of ocean management in the world.
So there's some big positives, Paul going to
France.
But of course, he's obviously a US and
Canadian citizen too.
So we hope it will lead to something,
but we don't know yet.
And we are eagerly, eagerly waiting for an
answer on that.
(48:05):
Here's what James Cameron, the famed film director,
has to say.
The people who defend our life support system
should be celebrated, not arrested.
The legendary activist, Captain Paul Watson, has stood
up for the oceans for decades.
He goes where no one else will to
enforce international conservation law and protect the sea
life that holds our planet in balance.
(48:25):
Captain Watson was arrested by Danish authorities.
This was posted a while ago in Greenland,
where he waits a decision on whether he
is extradited to Japan for sentencing.
I'm joining the international community and calling on
Denmark to issue his immediate release.
So what is Denmark doing about the overwhelming
(48:49):
international disgust over their situation?
There's been protests in LA.
There's been protests in Paris.
There's been protests in Belgium.
Famous people like James Cameron and Dr. Jane
Goodall and Piers Brosnan and the leaders of
rock bands, the lead singers, I mean, people
(49:10):
are outraged.
I don't understand why Denmark, which I think
values its reputation.
I mean, just, I've been to Denmark and
their recycling will blow your mind.
I wanted to take photos of how incredible
their recycling process was to bring back here
(49:30):
and tell people, let's get with it, people
on the recycling.
It seems like Denmark is so progressive.
It strikes me as bizarre that they are
taking this stance.
I don't, I still don't quite get it.
Omar, is there something I'm missing?
No, we've had countless discussions amongst ourselves on
(49:51):
the optics of this.
The optics is very bad for Denmark.
The longer they hold him, the worse it
looks for them.
And the repercussions on their reputation is going
to catch up to them if they continue
to hold him.
If they extradite him, that'll even be worse.
The best thing they can do to make
this problem go away is to release him.
And I am stunned that they haven't yet.
(50:14):
I think it's, whoever's in charge, I think
it's a poor decision.
I mean, I watch, I see the President
Met's Instagram account and you have a look
at it, right?
It's progressive, you know, she supports minority groups.
She's very environmental and conscious.
What are they thinking?
And in Paul's essentially, in the hands of
(50:34):
this young 30s plus year old minister of
justice, his hands at the moment, who for
whatever reason can't make his mind up, which
should be a very, very easy decision to
make.
You know, they don't have to follow this
extradition request.
It is a request.
It's not a demand.
So why are they doing it?
Good question.
I wish I knew.
(50:55):
And again, they're siding with Japanese law against
international treaties that say that whaling is a
big no-no.
So that strikes me as really bizarre.
And I keep seeing the phrase Faroe Islands
pop up.
I want to confess, I'm not exactly sure
(51:17):
where it fits in with this story.
Can you give me the 30 second elevator
on that?
Well, the Faroe Islands are northwest of England.
There are small group islands, one of the
highest GDPs in Europe.
They're a protectorate again, under the Danish government.
So if you look on that map there,
you can see England there.
(51:38):
And there's this tiny little dot up north
of England on the sort of northwest, just
between Iceland and England.
And that's the Faroe Islands.
Beautiful islands, amazing territory in terms of views
and, you know, cruises stop by there.
Very modern society.
But what they do all year round is
(51:59):
they have this effectively a blood sport.
They would argue it's for sussicence, you know,
like an Indigenous sussicence for food, which is
ridiculous.
But they hear about some whales coming in,
you know, to the area.
And then they get these little boats and
herd these, you know, 100 to 60, 70,
100, 200 whales into their ford.
(52:20):
And then they basically all run down there
and slaughter them with these corkscrew devices, knives,
and they get the kids to come down.
They all turn up in their brand new
Mercedes and BMWs.
And it's illegal to intervene.
Now, Sea Shepherd UK, Sea Shepherd France, and
(52:41):
now obviously the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, we've
been in opposition for that for years.
And this is another really peculiar little country.
And the Faroe Islands are controlled by Denmark?
They are part of Denmark?
It's an independent, autonomous country again.
But if you go there with your...
(53:02):
Yes, if you go there to defend the
whales though, it's the Danish Navy that will
turn up.
Okay, so that's why Denmark is doing it.
Correct.
So you've got a Danish Navy defending whale
killers that under Danish law is illegal.
And yet the Faroese get all the benefits
of an EU country that's in the EU,
but not in the EU.
(53:23):
So they get all the subsidies to build
all their tunnels and infrastructure and stuff.
It's a complete disaster.
And it's optically looks very bad for Denmark.
And I don't know why Denmark doesn't do
something about it, all to keep a few
people in their blood sport happy.
And it's very few people.
We can't point the finger at another country
when here in the United States, you're in
England.
(53:44):
I know there's been a big reduction in
hunting, but still there are fox hunts.
And I see the news all the time
on people, they're called hunt saboteurs.
They try to stop the hunting.
And here we have, people love to use
guns and say, well, we don't want to
(54:05):
kill people.
And we certainly don't, but it's okay to
kill animals.
And I don't believe that for a second.
So before we point fingers at another country,
we would have to look in the mirror
and say, what's our country doing?
And unfortunately, blood sport is part of the
human condition at this point.
(54:26):
Let's hope we evolve past it.
This has been such a fascinating conversation.
I want to say, Omar, I know you're
a very busy man and you are working
around the clock to free Captain Paul Watson.
And I want to thank you for taking
the time to tell our American audience, bring
us up to date on this horror show
(54:49):
and tell people what to do.
Please, if you are listening or watching, or
both, go to the Paul Watson Foundation.
It's paulwatsonfoundation.org.
The easiest to remember, paulwatsonfoundation.org and sign
the petition to demand the immediate release of
Paul Watson.
I did it last night.
(55:10):
It takes literally 45 seconds.
And I also want to thank Annie Abram,
who has organised several protests here in Los
Angeles to speak up for Paul Watson outside
Danish government offices here in Los Angeles.
And that's happening around the world.
(55:31):
So I very much appreciate all of your
efforts.
Everybody together, I think we can free Captain
Paul Watson.
And as far as what we do here
at Unchained TV, I really urge you to
download our app.
We are the only vegan animal rights streaming
(55:54):
television network with free content.
You can download us on your phone, on
any TV with streaming devices, and you can
also go to unchainedtv.com.
So it's a vegan Netflix.
Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
I love Unchained TV.
Unchained, Unchained TV.
Your life will change.
It's just that easy.
(56:14):
Unchained TV has all sorts of content for
everybody.
Unchained TV changed my life.
Unchained TV is crushing it.
I love Unchained TV.
Unchained TV is my go-to.
Unchained TV.
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