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⬅️ Previous capture (2022-03-01)
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All of Sea-Operation Thumbelina On February 7th of this year I took part in a Greenpeace New Zealand whale rescue operation. Greenpeace New Zealand had learned that a Japanese whaling vessel, the Toshi Maru no. 18, was to come into the Wellington harbour to pick up food supplies and to drop off a crew member ('scientist') for treatment of an injured thumb. While not aiming to prevent the crew member from receiving medical attention, it was decided that here was an opportunity to expose to the public the dire functions of the vessel and of the New Zealand Governments' compliance with the slaughter of the rare minke whale by allowing the ship into its' waters and by providing it with goods and services. Two Greenpeace zodiacs chased the whaler out to sea, avoiding the police vessels which had been sent out to protect the whaler and to prevent actions of protest taking place. We finally caught up with the whaling ship, got alongside and prepared for six of us to board and to chain ourselves to the vessel. It would most likely have been possible to do so had the New Zealand Government not kindly provided the ship with, among other things, police officers on board the whaler who violently prevented all but two of us from staying on the ship. Boarding demonstrators were kicked, punched and some were thrown into the sea. This was extremely dangerous as we got roughly 50km out at sea in turbulent waters and could have been drowned or sucked under the ship quite easily. Lives need not have been put at such risk in that situation but police chose to do so. They also chose to mash the face of one activist who managed to get on board, cause another to suffer a dislocated shoulder, ! and bruises all round. However, despite injuries and despite the fact we didn't manage to hold up Toshi Maru no. 18 as we had planned, we came out of the action pleased with what we had achieved. Once we realised that the police were onto us and that they had boarded before us, we knew our original plans were not as easily attainable as we had envisioned. But we kept at it and got a lot of media coverage in the process both here and in New Zealand and in Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. The New Zealand Government was put into the embarrassing position of being exposed as having helped to undermine an international moratorium on whaling in this part of the world when in fact it had itself voted for the moratorium prior to this event. Whalers are also given the message that their whaling operations were unacceptable and that they would be hassled everytime they tried to come here. As an Anarcha-feminist I am against the exploitation of people and animals and the earth. I am against violence against people, animals, and the earth. The slaughtering of minke whales sickens me. The attitude that we as humans can take what we want, do what we please with little or no consideration of when and what we effect in the process sickens me. The violence and alienation of State controlled society which supports such attitudes, I reject. Therefore I will continue to act to undermine the State and to protect the freedom of the earths' inhabitants, human and non human, for the preservation of our world.