It's tough being a Japanese activist — especially if you are campaigning against whaling or dolphin hunting.
Just ask Takayo Yamaguchi, subjected to online abuse, death threats and hacking attacks since she pioneered "tweetstorm" dolphin defense campaigns on social media in Japan six months ago. Or veteran conservationist Sakae Hemmi, cofounder of ELSA Nature Conservancy in 1976, who has been questioned several times by police since she first became involved in activism against the dolphin hunts in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. Or Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, two Greenpeace Japan activists convicted of trespass and theft in 2010 after seizing a parcel of whale meat illicitly posted by a Japan scientific whaling employee, which they presented as evidence to prove allegations of embezzlement within the scientific whaling program.
Often unaware of these activists' work, foreign opponents of Japan's whaling and dolphin hunting wonder why there are so few Japanese critics. Something needs to be said about the obstacles Japanese activists face.