Thaindian News

By Ranjan Bhaduri
Tokyo, Feb 16, (THAINDIAN NEWS) When social activism goes wrong, then be sure that you are in deep trouble. A similar kind of incident happened with two Japanese Greenpeace activists who were trying to crack the wrongdoings in the whaling fleet. Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, popularly known amongst the environmentalists as the “Tokyo Two” can now face charges up to 10 years in prison if found guilty in the trial. The duo has been reportedly charged with theft and trespassing. As per the recent developments, the two Japanese activists have pleaded “not guilty” during first day’s trial.

The whole fiasco began in 2008, when Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki took a box of whale meat from a courier company warehouse in Aomori and displayed it at a press conference to expose illegal whale meat trading. The duo claimed that the entire racket is being carried out right in front of the eyes of the authorities. But to their disappointment, their allegations were dropped, and in turn they ended up being in the line of fire. The duo was later on charged with theft and trespassing, and if found guilty of the charges pitted against them, the pair might face up to 10 years of imprisonment.

The charges against the two activists has resulted in wide spread agitation led by the Greenpeace activists. The NGO group sincerely hopes that the case will trigger opposition to whaling in Japan. As per the sources, the Japanese fleet hunts down thousands of sea animals in the Antarctic water. For the past few weeks several cases of repeated clashes between the ships and the campaigners have been reported.