Controversial environmental activist arrested in Greenland

Greenland Police were present at the harbor in Nuuk this morning to arrest the founder of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation organization, Paul Watson.

This was announced by Greenland Police in a press release.

Paul Watson was involved with Greenpeace from the beginning of the organization, but in 1977 they parted ways and he instead founded the Sea Shepard organization, which adopted a more confrontational approach to, among other things, prevent whale hunting. Sea Shepard has been featured in a TV documentary series that followed the organization’s battles against Japanese whaling ships. The series showed activists throwing acid bombs onto the decks of the Japanese whaling vessels and colliding with them on the open seas.

In 2022, Paul Watson left Sea Shepards and started his new organization, Captain Paul Watson Foundation.

The American-Canadian citizen was arrested because there is an international arrest warrant out for him.

The arrest took place without incident shortly after Paul Watson docked at Nuuk with the ship John Paul Dejoria, and the police operation has now been completed.

The Japanese authorities have issued an international arrest warrant for Paul Watson, which is why Greenland Police were ready to arrest him upon arrival in Nuuk.

Paul Watson will later today be presented to the Sermersooq District Court with a request for his detention until a decision is made on whether he should be extradited to Japan.

The Ministry of Justice will make the decision on whether there are grounds to extradite individuals for prosecution in other countries.