The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently declared that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a band of pirates. This means that the government has officially declared that this anti-whaling advocate group is illegal and that their tactics to disrupt an annual whaling hunt off the coast of Antarctica should be punished. According to The Seattle Times, the three-judge panel declared that ramming ships, hurling class containers of acid, and dragging metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage boat propellers are all acts of vandalism and violence that are characteristic of oceanic pirates.
The Sea Shepherd is trying to heavily discourage locals from whaling, but their inconvenient and damaging tactics have allegedly gone too far. The Sea Shepherd Conservations uses metal to damage the propellers and rudders on the whaling ships, and also launches smoke bombs and flares with hooks at the boats in order to stop them from killing whales. They have also used high-powered lasers to obstruct the captains’ vision on other ships and have constantly irritated, harmed, or frustrated whaling ships. At present, the Sea Shepherd has a court order to keep it’s ships at least 500 yards away from Japanese whalers, but the Japanese companies say that the Sea Shepherds have already violated that mandate at least twice this month.
For some time, the whale advocates were considered innocent, and the judges stood by their side through allegations. It wasn’t until recently that they changed face and decided to declare the whaling advocates as illegal pirates. If you believe that you are victim to a false allegation, such as piracy or even a criminal charge then you need a Seattle criminal defense attorney to assist you. With the right lawyer on your side, you can go to court confident that a lawyer will do all he or she can to assist you in your case.