HE is in extended detention awaiting a court date that could result in extradition to a country likely to imprison him for life. He has flowing white hair and two young children he has not seen in some time. He has consistently exposed illegal acts of violence and atrocities by a foreign government that have led to the loss of life.
 
He is not Julian Assange, who is now finally free. He is Paul Watson, who might never be. But unlike Assange, who garnered a powerful worldwide campaign to demand his freedom after he exposed US war crimes, Watson has not become an international cause celebre on the same scale.
 
Watson, a 73-year-old Canadian, is best known as a co-founder of Greenpeace and then Sea Shepherd. He left both organisations under acrimonious circumstances, establishing the Captain Paul Watson Foundation in 2022, where he serves as an unpaid director.
 
The lives Watson defends are not human ones but those of whales, seals, dolphins, and others he calls “magnificent wild creatures” of the sea. He embraces an activism he describes as “aggressive non-violence.”

That has meant getting in the path of Japanese whaling ships or those clubbing baby seals and attempting to stop what Watson says is “simply the largest massacre of wildlife on the planet.”
 
Now, that lifelong commitment to the preservation of ocean life may have cost Watson his freedom. On July 21, while docking his ship, the John Paul de Joria, in Nuuk, Greenland, Watson was arrested by Danish authorities.

He and his crew had been on the way to the north Pacific on a mission to intercept and block the Kengei Maru, Japan’s new and massive whaling ship, as it embarked on the slaughter of endangered fin whales.
 
Japan has been on Watson’s tail since an incident involving Sea Shepherd in 2010 in Antarctica when one of Watson’s crew members threw a stink bomb on board the Japanese whaling ship they were chasing. The Japanese claim it injured one of their sailors and further accused Watson of causing damage to the ship and trespassing. In 2012, Japan put out an international warrant for Watson’s arrest.
 
Since July 21, Watson has seen his hearing date in the Nuuk courtroom postponed six times by Judge Lars-Christian Sinkbaek, who insists that he cannot authorise an official hearing until the Danish Justice Ministry has ruled on whether to proceed with extradition. The next hearing is set for December 2, Watson’s 74th birthday.
 
Watson’s lawyers say the charges are politically motivated, that the stink bomb was harmless and not thrown by him and that the injury suffered by the Japanese crew member was the result of tear gas used by the Japanese themselves to try to deter the Sea Shepherd activists.
 
“The side where the Japanese sailor was supposed to be, he was not there, so they didn’t get injured by a stink bomb, it didn’t happen,” said one of Watson’s lawyers, Jonas Christofferson.

Watson’s legal team have repeatedly tried to show video evidence that would clear Watson of wrongdoing but has been repeatedly denied. In contrast, the prosecution has been allowed to show a short video from the Japanese side.
 
“The other two allegations [cutting a net and trespass] would be a fine under Japanese and Greenlandic law, and you cannot detain for a charge that would be a fine, so there is no case,” said Christofferson, whose team has argued that Watson’s long detention violates his human rights and is equivalent to time served.
 
There has been an international moratorium on whaling since 2019, and the International Court of Justice in the Hague has ruled Japanese whaling in Antarctica illegal. But Japan continues to hunt whales under a loophole that allows the practice for “scientific research.”
 
“Japan wants to resume full-scale commercial whaling despite the fact that whaling worldwide is illegal,” said Watson before setting sail from Dublin, Ireland, four months ago.
 
Watson has received public support for his release from several renowned naturalists, including Jane Goodall, who said that Watson was giving voice to the many around the world who “absolutely support his moral courage in not only speaking out on behalf of the whales, but taking action.”

Goodall also signed a letter from a group called Ocean Elders asking Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to intervene and secure Watson’s release. An online petition with a similar message launched by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation has garnered more than 200,000 signatures.
 
Last month, the Perfect World Foundation, a Swedish wildlife and nature organisation, announced it had selected Watson as its 2025 award recipient, an honour also previously bestowed on Goodall. Time magazine named Watson one of its Top 20 Environmental Heroes of the 20th Century in 2000.
 
But some of the world’s most prominent environmental groups have remained largely silent after his arrest. A query to Greenpeace prompted a statement of support, although it does not appear to have been issued publicly.
 
“Greenpeace UK condemns all politically motivated intimidation of environmental activists anywhere in the world,” said a spokesperson.

“While Paul Watson’s case relates to events long after he left Greenpeace, we call on the Danish government to do the right thing and reject the application for the extradition of a tireless and dedicated activist for events that took place more than a decade ago. We call for his immediate release.”
 
Meanwhile, less than 10 days after Watson’s arrest, Japan began its relentless slaughter of fin whales.
 
“Japan harpoons its first endangered fin whale in over 50 years, confirming suspicions that a return to high seas slaughter of the world’s largest mammals was always its intention,” read a statement from Watson’s foundation.

“Japan continues to flaunt international conservation law, and Paul Watson is being punished for Japan’s crimes,” said Locky MacLean, the captain of the now-stranded John Paul de Joria. “Japan needs Paul Watson out of the way so they can resume slaughtering the world’s great whales.”
 
Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.