Thursday, January 28, 2016

Ric O'Barry is Still in Jail: the Stillness Before the Storm


The People of the Sea are asking for our help

So, are you feeling the stillness before the storm?

The Dolphin Activist many consider a hero, Ric O'Barry, is in jail in Japan...still in jail ever since he arrived in Japan on January18th. He was sent to the Narita Immigration Detention Center, a hellacious place described in many places with a Google Search, like this one in the prestigious magazine, The Economist, to be like a Stalin Era prison Gulag.

He will not always be in jail. When he's released, we can help the pressure grow to help end the Japanese War on Dolphins.

If you have specialized skills please contact me. We have recently been contacted by a PR firm discussing options to expand pressure to motivate Japanese corporate interests. This is a new line of thinking...usually professionals have been afraid of a Japanese corporate backlash. This group seems to be looking forward to a melee.  Or, if you want to come to Taiji as an independent activist, we can help you with a homestay in Taiji Town itself. If you cannot come to Taiji to help bear witness, then please support those who can.

The coming storm will come when Ric leaves the Japanese jail if Ric decides to fight in the courts. This storm would keep a hard raining frustrating pressure system on Japan's Dolphin Killing Parade. It would also keep the story in the news.

This US Court Decision from more than 100 years ago may give an indication of how things might go for Ric.

Ric's next play, if he chooses it, will probably be to file a lawsuit against the Japanese Government after he is forced to leave the country sometime between next week and the 60 day limit around March 20th.

If Ric does decide to fight, it looks like it may be the very first case of it's kind. It looks like it's incredibly rare for anyone to be so angry at their treatment at Japanese Immigration that they fight back. There appears to be a pattern of Japanese Immigration nastiness but to actually take the time and energy and resources to go the distance and fight the Japanese Government in court, is unheard off. If Ric decides to fight, he may be the first. There is very little public record that I can find on individuals who sue the Japanese Government over a Deportation Order. It would certainly take a whole lot of patience and precious time and a whole lot of money too.

Australia For Dolphins and Earth Island Institute have teamed up to sue the J-gov sponsored Taiji Whale Museum (TWM) and they are now tied up in court...it's been more than 18 months and thousands of dollars a month. But it looks like there is a very good chance of winning and already, just the lawsuit itself has significantly changed how the TWM does business. They can no longer block people from entering the museum just because they might oppose the Dolphin Killing.

As a side-note, have you tried the Taiji Whale Museum link above? It's down in Japan from time to time at least with "Service Temporarily Unavailable" because Anonymous has made it that way. Anon is expected to be part of this never-ending storm bearing down on those who support the War on Dolphins.

So far, Ric's expenses are limited because his lawyer has almost no place in the Japanese Deportation Hearings. But if Ric does fight, he will need a war chest in the 100's of thousands of dollars and I for one will support this fight. I have met Ric's lawyer, Mr. Takano. He is a formidable lawyer and a well-known Japanese law professor. He is also the attorney in TWM case as well.

Previous cases in the USA, where Japan seems to get some of it's legal direction point to an interesting American case when a JAPANESE woman fought deportation FROM AMERICA TO JAPAN, the opposite to Ric who may obviously fight deportation FROM JAPAN TO AMERICA. While US case law certainly sets no precedents for the nation of Japan, I think it's an indication of how decisions are apt to go. Please take a look. I'm sure the lawyers are.

"Ms. Kaoru Yamataya was a sixteen-year-old girl from Japan when she landed in Seattle on July 11, 1901." ...this is the case...114 years ago that rocked the US legal system and changed deportation procedures in the US forever. Ms. Yamataya ended up losing her case because she was a minor and that the stingy government at the time didn't want to pay for immigrants' welfare.

But the information that came out as this case worked it's way all the way to the United States Supreme Court and made it necessary for the Immigration Department to change their rules and be less of a bunch of stingy asshats.

(At least this is how I read the case. Are there any legal experts want to have a go at better explaining this?)

So, if Ric chooses to fight after he returns to the USA, he will certainly need funding from all who love him and he may actually change how Japanese Immigration functions and improve it just by virtue of making the story a public spectacle that few are as good at as Ric O'Barry. He would be the ideal person for the job. He is a master at getting himself in the news in order to talk about Dolphins.

Would the case make it through the Japanese courts enough to change how the narrow-minded Japanese Immigration Asshats deal with Dolphin Activists? It's unknown but I think it's worth a try.

It will certainly buffer the stress around the activists in Taiji with Ric's Dolphin Project as well as Sea Shepherd who are now in Taiji until the end of the Dolphin Killing Season and those expected to return for the opening of the next Dolphin Killings in September 2016. AND WE NEED THEM THERE. Without activists on the ground in Taiji, the world would simply not know.

I hope Ric does go the distance. Don't you!



Sincerely,
Steven Thompson
TDAG

And if you know the difference between Death Metal and Metalcore or want to listen in, please enjoy the Deathcore band from Denver Colorado, Stillness Before the Storm, that can be found on Facebook here and their music of how I feel when the hunt is going on and the Dolphins are about to be murdered. It's heavy and metal and fcuking edgy.