Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, sits in jail tonight, as he has since Sunday, in Frankfurt Germany while the German judicial system contemplates whether to send him in shackles to Costa Rica to face a political trial on a stale, 10 year old warrant. Paul Watson was filming a documentary ten years ago when a Sea Shepherd vessel "occupied" the open sea to interfere with a Costa Rican shark finning ship operating illegally in Guatemalan waters.
Though I recognize that a court will resolve this question, and any honest court is presumably beyond your influence and mine, there is nevertheless an old fashioned saying in my world to the effect that "judges read newspapers, too". Thus I propose that it could not hurt, and might actually help if as many of us as possible take a few minutes to compose an email to the German Embassy. Or, going to the same page, you could use my text:
I want to know whether the Government of Germany, as it should, will use whatever lawful power it possesses to prevent the extradition of Paul Watson to Costa Rica on the warrant for which he was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany on Sunday, May 13,2012.
Just cut and paste. Use that same link about composing an email to find your local consulate; there are lots of them. The more they hear from the American public about this, the more they will file reports and push things up the system. They're German, after all.
Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society exist to provide private means of enforcement of international environmental law where no public means exists. It's worse than that, really, because the real criminals, when it comes to whales, is the 1% who control the country of Japan, which continues to issue unlawful "research" permits, so the "public" part is actually arrayed against SSCS.
The similarities to Occupy Wall Street seem obvious. Just consider the SSCS mission statement:
Our mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world's oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.
Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations.
That seems kinda familiar.
So everybody needs to take action, to click and send Germany a message that we don't like seeing this happen to Paul Watson. It's the least we can do and it might even help. Sometimes folks don't see the light until they feel the heat.