Japanese whalers accused of injuring activists

Videos
Photos

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-02 16:48

SYDNEY -- Japanese whalers were accused Monday of injuring two anti-whaling activists in a high seas clash in the Antarctic and of deploying a new "military grade" acoustic weapon against protesters.

File image shows two whales (front and partly seen at right) being dragged on board a Japanese whaling ship after being harpooned in Antarctic waters. [Agencies]

One activist was cut and bruised after being knocked over by a high pressure blast of water and the other was hit in the face by a metal ball thrown by the whalers, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said.

Both men had been on small inflatable boats launched from the groups' flagship the "Steve Irwin" to "harass the (Japanese whaling) fleet and to hurry them along," Sea Shepherd said in a statement.

The militant environmental group, which has been accused by Japan of "eco-terrorism" for its attempts to disrupt the annual whale hunt, said the whalers had used a new "acoustic weapon" against protesters.

"The factory ship the Nisshin Maru and the two harpoon vessels in the fleet are equipped with long range acoustical devices," the statement said.

"This is a military grade weapon system that sends out mid to high frequency sound waves designed to disorient and possibly incapacitate personnel. It is basically an anti-personnel weapons system."

The "Steve Irwin" retreated when within range of the acoustic weapon but generally had "a very successful day," said captain Paul Watson.

"All we need to do is to keep them running and to keep them from whaling and that is exactly what we are doing," he said.

A spokesman for Japan's government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research would not confirm that the fleet was using sound waves against the activists.

"We can neither confirm nor deny the strategies employed by the Japanese research vessels to protect themselves from the criminal actions committed by the Dutch vessel," Glenn Inwood told Australia's national AAP news agency.

"We can say, however, that all legal means available will be used to ensure these pirates do not board Japanese ships or threaten the lives of the crews or the safety of the vessels."

An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but Japan kills hundreds each year in the name of research, while making no secret of the fact that the meat ends up on dinner tables.