Canadian Court Declares Seal Hunt Observers Innocent

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Canadian Court Declares Seal Hunt Observers Innocent

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

ILES DE LA MADELEINE, Canada (Oct. 17, 2008) – Today, Judge Jean-Paul Décoste

declared

the defendants in the case against five seal-hunt observers innocent. This

verdict

has been anticipated by The Humane Society of the United States and Humane

Society

International since the case first began in October 2007.

 

" The evidence showed without a doubt that my clients were innocent and I thank

Judge Décoste for seeing through the Crown's illogical arguments to the

contrary

and finding them innocent, " said Clayton Ruby, lawyer for the accused.

 

The defendants – Canadians Rebecca Aldworth and Andrew Plumbly, Americans Chad

Sisneros

and Pierre Grzybowski, and British citizen Mark Glover – are all

representatives

of The HSUS and HS I .

 

In March of 2006, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Department of Fisheries and

Oceans Officer Jean-Francois Sylvestre charged the five defendants with

violating

a condition of their observation licenses which requires they remain at least

10-metres

from sealing activity. The defendants were in the Gulf of St. Lawrence

documenting

the commercial seal hunt to bring to the world the shocking images of baby seals

being clubbed, shot and even being skinned alive.

 

The defense case rested heavily on the video records of four separate parties: a

Canadian government ship, an independent reporter and two of the accused. These

videos scientifically showed that the defendants were at least 19.6 meters from

sealing activity at the time of the incident. Judge Décoste refused to hear the

experts who were called by the defense, but nonetheless found, after viewing the

tapes himself, that the Crown case had not been proved.

 

" This was not only a victory for my clients but for the entire Canadian justice

system, " continued Ruby. " Today's ruling proves what we have been

saying all along. These charges should never have been brought in the first

place.

These charges were no more than an attempt to silence us: a conviction would

certainly

have been followed by refusal of Observation Permits by the Minister of

Fisheries.

Our presence documenting this cruel hunt of baby seals keeps the pressure of

world

criticism on Canada and enables us to urge the rest of the world to refuse seal

products. "

 

 

Fascism, like socialism, is rooted in a market society that refused to function.

 

A financial system always devolves, without heavy government control, into a

Mafia capitalism -- and a Mafia political system.

 

A self-regulating market turns human beings and the natural environment into

commodities, a situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the

natural environment.

 

Karl Polanyi