Reply to NAALPO From Captain Paul Watson
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 15:54:56 -0700
REPLY TO PRESS RELEASE
There is some serious mis-information in this press
release.
At no time did the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
ever refuse to pay for the legal fees for Dr. Jerry
Vlasak. Attorney John Mitchell was retained by Sea
Shepherd to represent all 11 Sea Shepherd crew that
were arrested on March 31st, 2005.
John Mitchell is currently representing all 11 crew
including Dr. Jerry Vlasak with the appeal against the
convictions. John Mitchell is not representing Jerry
pro bono and this is a totally false statement. Since
March 31st, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has
spend $50,000Cdn on legal fees on this case. Some of
the crew have contributed to these expenses including
Lisa Shalom. Jerry Vlasak has not contributed to the
costs at all. Instead his wife Pam Ferdin has been
discouraging people from supporting Sea Shepherd and
the legal defense fund.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has not refused
to pay transportation for any of the eleven crew. The
Society advised all eleven crew that the convictions
were being appealed. Sea Shepherd was not even aware
of Jerry Vlasak's arrival in Canada until after he
arrived.
Sea Shepherd has been updating our website with
reference to Jerry's entering jail and his hunger
strike despite Pamelyn Ferdin's distribution of
anti-Sea Shepherd e-mails attacking the Society with
mis-information.
Sea Shepherd covered the cost of Lisa Shalom's
expenses to go to Charlottetown to appear in Court and
to organize a demonstration on Jerry's behalf before
the jail in Charlottetown.
Dr. Jerry Vlasak was not kicked out of Sea Shepherd.
He was asked to resign from the Board of Directors. He
was told he could still participate as a crewmember
with Sea Shepherd campaigns. He was asked to resign
because he violated a primary policy of the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society which is that the
Society does not condone, advocate or support any
tactic that could cause injury or death to any human
being. Dr. Vlasak was aware of this policy when he
joined the Board of Directors. In April 2005 his
statements advocating violence became the story and
pulled the moral high ground from under us. We lost a
great deal of media and public support for the seals.
Pamelyn Ferdin said this was unimportant. We
disagreed.
The release states that Jerry Vlasak believes that
there must be a year round campaign against the seal
slaughter. The fact is that Sea Shepherd and other
organizations like HSUS and IFAW are in fact involved
in this campaign on a continuous basis.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is supporting a
campaign to undermine the international markets for
seal oil and we are leading a boycott effort against
Costco for marketing it. I joined Brigitte Bardot and
Persia White in Ottawa to oppose the seal slaughter. I
and other Sea Shepherd reps have done numerous
international television and radio international
interviews on this campaign. We are actively promoting
the boycott of Canadian Seafood and we are supporting
the boycott of tourism to Canada.
Last year we brought our ship into the ice and we will
be returning next year. The only reason we do not have
a ship there this year is because we have just
completed a major campaign to Antarctica to protect
whales and our ship is in South Africa. We did not
have the time or the money to get the ship to
Newfoundland for this year.
Our organization is the only group that actucally goes
to the ice with ships and actively opposes sealers on
the ice. Jerry Vlasak will not be returning to the ice
next year but we will.
What I find astounding is that Pamelyn Ferdin who has
never been to the seal slaughter, can ask why I am not
in Canada at this moment and her husband is, when in
fact I have just returned from Canada and I have been
going to the ice and opposing the seal slaughter since
1975. I have been beaten by sealers, I have been
jailed and fined and I have spent more time in jail on
this issue that Jerry is spending, yet Pamelyn is
attacking me because we simply asked her husband to
resign from the board for advocating the killing of
sealers. Jerry by the way has only gone to the seal
slaughter once and that was at our expense and on our
ship. Pamelyn is now proclaiming that he is the only
true champion of the seals because he is sitting in
jail and not eating.
Instead of thanks for supporting Jerry in jail, we get
slammed by his wife and accused of doing nothing.
It seems to me that we should be able to agree to
disagree on tactics and that Pamelyn Ferdin has some
serious problems with enemy identification if she is
attacking Sea Shepherd. She is even lauding Greenpeace
despite the fact that Greenpeace actually supports the
seal slaughter as "sustainable".
This is a diverse movement and there are many
approaches, many tactics and many strategies and we
support them all. We support Jerry's tactics if he
applies them as his tactics but we simply said that we
cannot support his tactics in the name of Sea
Shepherd.
Sea Shepherd does not endorse causing injury or death
to any person, period. If people disagree with this,
fine, but that is our policy and we believe it is a
responsible policy and we have no intention of
changing it.,
This attack, this misinformation does not do this
movement any credit nor does it contribute to the
defense of the seals. We disagree with Jerry yet we
still continued to support him as a defender of seals
- that is why Lisa has organized the demonstration in
his support. That is why we are covering his legal
fees and his appeal. That is why we have not spoken
negatively in public or in private about Jerry Vlasak.
Why? Because he is not our enemy.
We regret that NAALPO and Pamelyn Ferdin believe we
are their enemy - but we are not.
We wish Jerry all the best, we applaud his courage and
we hope that he will respect us for what we do as we
respect him for his approach.
Sincerely
Captain Paul Watson
Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
(1977)
Co-Founder of Greenpeace International (1979)
Co-Founder of the Greenpeace Foundation (1972)
National Director of the Sierra Club USA (2003-2006)
Director of the Farley Mowat Institute
Give me a fair ship so that I make sail into harm's
way.
- Captain John Paul Jones
- Founder of the United States and Russian Navies
Whom when I asked from what place he came
And how he hight, himselfe he did ycleepe,
The Shepheard of the Ocean by Name,
And said he came from the main-sea deepe.
- Edward Spencer
----- Original Message -----
From: Press Office
To: NAALPO List
Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 1:03 PM
Subject: [animallibpress] JAIL PROTEST HELD ON
BEHALF OF DR. JERRY VLASAK!
PROTEST HELD ON BEHALF OF JERRY
VLASAK, MD OUTSIDE THE PEI JAIL
For Immediate Release
Saturday, April 8, 2006
21044 Sherman Way #211
Canoga Park CA 91302
phone: 818.932-9997 fax: 818.932-9998
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.animalliberationpressoffice.org
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Eastern
Canada -Dr. Jerry Vlasak, one of three press officers
with the North American Animal Liberation Press
Office, (NAALPO), is the first of the anti-sealing
protesters to turn himself in; he currently sits in
jail on his 13th day of a hunger strike. John
Mitchell, legal counsel for the eleven activists, said
he is aware of plans by several of those arrested with
Vlasak to turn themselves in and serve their
respective sentences. But none of those individuals
have contacted or advised Mitchell with respect to
when they intend to return to Charlottetown.
Lisa Shalom, a fellow activist and one of three
females arrested on the ice floes last march along
with the eight other anti-sealing protesters, decided
to hold a demonstration. She had elected to pay the
fine of 1000C to the court in lieu of jail time but
wanted to make sure that Vlasak had support in
Charlottetown from the outside. Charlottetown, PEI is
not London; New York or even an Austin, Texas- so it
was a challenge for Shalom to get people out on behalf
of Vlasak in a city that has close ties to the seal
kill. In fact, one of the jailers told Vlasak that his
father is a "sealer."
http://theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=2193&sc=2
(NAALPO NOTE: One paragraph in the article is
completely incorrect. Dr. Vlasak is not spending time
in jail to raise money for any conservation group. Dr.
Vlasak is NOT in jail to raise money, but to fulfill
his sentence, protest the seal kill and protest the
unjust conviction of himself and the ten other
anti-sealing activists.)
Dr. Vlasak, formerly of Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, was questioned by a reporter last year and
stated that in his personal opinion violence in
defense of innocent seals being clubbed to death is
morally justifiable if the seal killers would not stop
any other way. Vlasak states, Those very words got me
ousted as a board member of SSCS - but I stand by them
without regret. If it were your child or companion
being clubbed to death, would violence in self-defense
not be morally justified in order to stop it? I was
simply giving my own personal opinion, as I have a
right to do under the U.S. Constitution."
SSCS has refused to pay for Vlasaks appeal, but
Mitchell plans to include Vlasak pro bono in the
appeal along with the ten other activists. Dr. Vlasak
also had to pay his own way to turn himself in, but he
said such was the least he could do for the seals -
since he has been banned from the ice floes for three
years.
On Sunday, March 26th, HSUS took Zodiacs out to
the ice floes - but one of them was rammed by a
fishing boat with the film of the seal kill
confiscated. These HSUS activists have now been banned
from the ice floes. Vlasak states, I have always
believed that there has got to be a year-round
campaign against this seal slaughter - not just once a
year during the actual kill, with the million-dollar
multi-nationals suddenly moving on to other
campaigns." Finally, HSUS has come up with the idea
of a worldwide boycott of Canadian seafood. This is a
great start, but ALL Canadian products - and tourism -
should be boycotted! HSUS has also brought major
attention to this kill by enlisting Lady Heather and
Sir Paul Mcartney. HSUS is focused on bringing major
attention to this hunt, and its own Rebecca Aldworth -
who lives in Canada - is spearheading that effort.
The "second phase" of the massacre of baby seals
in the Labrador Front, Newfoundland started last
Tuesday and is going to kill 234,000 infants for their
fur and penises - sold to make European coats and
Asian aphrodisiacs.
For more information - and footage - on the seal
kill, please e-mail or call the North American Animal
Liberation Press Office at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or (818)
932-9997, respectively.
National Press Officers:
Lindy Greene-Southwest
Camille Hankins-New York
Jerry Vlasak MD-Los Angeles
-30-
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