British sailors held captive
 

Sorry for the provocative title, but i want to hear people's views on this:
Earlier this week, 2 British anti-whaling protesters boarded a Japanese whaling ship. They were then "held against their will" according the the BBC radio 2 news this morning.
Now, their aim was admirable, i don't like the idea of whaling in the slightest, but that's not the point of this discussion:
As far as i'm aware, boarding a vessel belonging to another country in international waters is piracy, therefore, the Japanese were well within their rights to detain them, in a sort of citizen's arrest.
Opinions?

Got links? It'd help to have the full account.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1811

That's only the daily mail; the college computers don't like the BBC website and won't let me access Reuters, so i'll get more links when i get home.

Not as far as I'm aware...

Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. (I finally found it through Schedule 5 of the Merchant Shipping and Maritime Security Act 1997 it shouldn't be this hard to discover information on piracy)

I don't think therefore that what the English sailors did is piracy (if they only boarded the ship and without violence), but what the Japanese sailors did may have been.

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Depredation = An act of plundering or despoiling.

Moby Doofus
 

Honestly and truthfully, I find I would have no sympathy for the protesters under normal conditions. They trespassed, probably made the sailors feel threatened, and so they detained them?

I say they got off easy. Maybe thats its I live in a country where we are allowed to shoot people for that. I dunno.

I could see them as protecting themselves and their vessel, because lets face it, eco-protesters are some of the most ruthless and often violent groups of them all. I mean the article quotes a guy who threatened to ram a ship to stop it from whaling. An act that would have probably resulted in loss or injury of human life. On both sides of this conflict.

I say as long as the jolly ole' Englishmen weren't hurt or mistreated, sitting aboard a ship for a few hours while the boat crew finishes up their day is no big deal, and lets face it many of us spend more time waiting to get on a plane in an airport...

BUT ultimately they aren't doing that, they are holding them hostage and using them as bargaining chips to stop the whaling protests, which are trying to stop a fleet of illegal whalers in an Australian whale sanctuary.

So summary...

If this had happened in a legal environment I'd say more power to the whalers, but they are doing an illegal whale hunt and took hostages, and are then making demands with those hostages. That's wrong.

I know my argument may be a bit all over the place so again I'll try to summarize, I side with the hostages on this one. If what the whalers were doing were legal, I would side with them, but it isn't.

They were offered a meal of whale meat XD they could concievably regard that as a deliberate move, in that the japanese knew they were anti-whaling protestors, and decided to indulge in a little psychological prodding.
On the other hand, i'm not an expert on the diets of the Japanese, no less Japanese sailors, but it strikes me as fairly reasonable that they would have whale meat on board and hey; what else're you going to offer your involuntary shipmates, other than what's to hand in the moment?

Under Japanese law it is perfectly legal to hunt whales for scientific research, then sell the corpses to people who make products out of them for profit.

My issue is that they steadfastly claim it's for science. The guys did do something stupid but they didn't attack the whalers, merely went onboard to present a petition and then were tied up and held against their will. Just for reference, this is not legal anywhere. The fishermen then demanded that they agree to demands before they let them go. That's my problem with it.

Well, look at it from whaler's point of view.

Just a few days before, these same guys performed fake ramming runs again them, and act that, in the past, as lead to a collision:

The Japanese also claim that, in this action, one of their ships was attacked:

...It should be noted the activists claim it was the other way around:

So, then you have the part that everyone agrees on: After "attempting to contact" the ship, the activists board the Japanese vessel, and the crew detains them.

After this, it turns into a giant chase of "Nuh-uh/Yuh-uh". The activist group claims that the men were tied to the mast for hours, while the Japanese claim it was 10-15 minutes, and the did it because they feared the activities had violent intents.

Both sides are accusing the other of piracy/kidnapping (according to this article, the Sea Shepherd group has pictures of the two tied to the radar mast, while the Japanese have pictures of what they claim are broken bottles and the like thrown at them by the activists, and pictures of the two detainees drinking tea with the crew).

Both sides could of handled this better, but if I had to pick, I'd say that the activists were the bigger idiots in this fracas. What the heck where they expecting to happen when they board a ship they almost rammed a few days before?

I think the French method of dealing with protestors is good. Rainbow warrior, anyone?

Toastburner B:

Don't call people idiots in Discussion.


Herr Doktor:

Don't joke about murdering people that you don't agree with in Discussion.

Both warned.