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Japanese Police Issue Arrest Warrant For Hayden Panettiere

Earlier this month we reported about the participation of “Heroes” star Hayden Panettiere in a protest against a dolphin hunt conducted by fishermen in the Japanese town of Taiji. It is now appears that Japanese police have issued arrest warrants for Hayden and her surfer friends.

If one watches the video report of the protest, the way the protesters sped away from the scene in their van makes it pretty clear they were aware that their actions may have been breaking Japanese law. Her response to the arrest warrant has been one of defiance:

In a statement released Thursday afternoon to Access Hollywood, Hayden branded the arrest warrant “defensive.”

“Obviously this issue has generated defensive behavior on the part of both the Japanese Authorities and Fishermen,” she said in the statement. “I have grown up hearing – and adhering to – this phrase: ‘condemnation without investigation dooms one to everlasting ignorance.’

“We must unite as a world to solve our increasing international environmental crises,” her statement continued. “We can no longer hide [behind] out-dated, senseless cultural traditions and lazy, bad habits that are resulting in the annihilation of our planet’s resources and the extinction of our species.”

A spokesman for the Japanese fishermen responded to such claims with the follow statement:

“Generations of people in Taiji have relied on fisheries for their livelihoods, and their catches are carried out in a sustainable manner.

“The population of dolphins has been healthily maintained for many years.

“While respecting Ms. Panettierre’s personal feelings towards dolphins, I hope that your viewers will be reassured by the fact that Japan is carefully managing marine living resources for the future,” the statement read.

A quick check revealed that none of the species targeted in the Taiji hunt (bottlenose dolphins, striped dolphins, Pantropical spotted dolphins, Risso’s Dolphins, false killer whales, and pilot whales) are in any significant danger of going extinct, and it would be almost laughable to suggest that the small scale hunts conducted by the Taiji fishermen are threatening these animals with “annihilation.” It’s one thing to argue against the Taijin hunt on grounds of cruelty or a belief that intelligent animals should not be killed, but to claim Taiji’s fishermen are driving dolphins towards extinction could be considered “condemnation without investigation.”

Is Hayden Panettiere a hero?

[Thanks to Josh for sending in the link!]

67 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - November 16, 2007 at 3:11 pm

Categories: Celebrity News, Foreigners in Japan Tags: dolphin, hunt, japan

annie

I want to see her in handcuffs. Nothing against her but it would make a nice picture

Grinz

indeed
Emily

Hayden should not be in HANDCUFFS! She is a hero. They should not take innocent animals and kill them. Why harm animals. Some people are very cruel!! Hayden is now one of my heroes!! SAVE THE WHALES!!!!

chief

While I donot believe they were doing something that is considered OK [in my eyes], there is a right way to do things, and a wrong way.

The problem here is that an American TV show personality went to a foreign country and thought they can do whatever they want because “Im a big american TV star.” Shes wrong, there are laws, and if someone who WASNT an american TV personality right now did this, they would already be on a plane back to Japan for prosecution. Of course, the networks can’t allow it, so they will no doubt filter the news as much as possible, pay people off, and she probably won’t even have to go back to Japan. *shrug*

As much as I do like about this country, the arrogance is hard to stomach. This ladies and gentleman is why the world looks at us with disgust. Americaaaa fuck yeeaaaah!

sod

totally agree with you there. still they might extradite her, if not japan is the last place she will be able to visit again.

David

what was she charged with?

The Overthinker

The only Japanese sites I have found in a quick look give the appearance of being translated from the US sources. Haven’t found any serious news sites that carry the story.
David

disrupting international commerce is a pretty vague charge, trespassing is nothing.

It would have to be something more than that to have her extradited, which will probably never happen anyway.

I think they just wanted to let her and her friends know they were not welcome back in Japan.
The Overthinker

As far as I can tell the only likely charge is destruction of property if she and her friends actually did some damage. The sea is not private property, so unless they did some land protesting on private property it’s not trespass. And yeah, short of murder (or even murder) it would not be likely that Japan would want to bother with extradition. And even less likely the US would agree, considering their stance on the ICC and Americans getting tried by non-Americans….

One of the links in Japanese I found had some post-protest (her hair looked wet, still in bikini) pics back at the hotel with her smiling and laughing and flashing her bikini while sipping a Japanese version of that latte thing Britney Spears seems to be surgically attached to.
ponta

Have you ever heard that the police leaked the information that the court issued the arrest warrant.
And I doubt if the court can issue the arrest warrant for violating international commerce.
I suspect that they made up this story to make it look more “dramatic”.

johnny

she did a good thing, and whaling/dolphin hunting is hardly what id call an “ancient tradition” in japan, as theyve only been doing it since the 1600′s.

i think international law trumps japanese law in this case and whaling is illegal worldwide, but japan (and norway) continues to flout these laws.
Dispicable

Hayden is a self promoting turd. She probably lied to Japanese authorities to get in the country for holidays and then break their laws. She should be jailed.
Her crying act was to promote herself and her TV shows. Well the crying won’t win her the Oscars and it didn’t win any sympathy for the dolphins either. There’s nothing sincere about her protest. Except maybe the make up and camera man she brought to the protest.
Hey Hayden, save the salmon and the elks Americans kill every year.
Does she have the guts protest against the Alaskan and Atlantic fisheries? They’d piss on her.
Hayden, stop wearing leather you hypocrit.
Emily

I am sorry but do you live in America? You are very cruel to say that you hate America!!

The Overthinker

Ah, the reason why Bush won in 2004 – his marvellous ability to see only black or white, never grey, merely reflects that of most Americans. For example, when any criticism is offered of the US, despite being prefaced with “As much as I do like about this country” which would not seem to indicate hate to me….

shazzb0t

Good. She needs to get her facts straight before her and her dope up hippie friends try shit like this. Frankly, I found her saying to be rather self-indulgent and a little bit bewildering. She didn’t even bother to find out anything about the hunt at Taiji so who is she to be speaking of ignorance and so on?

Like I said before if she is such a hero where was she when the last actual dolphin species went extinct? Some say that is besides the point, but the reality is that she was protesting this hunt on the grounds (also noted in this post) that the Japanese are blindly leading dolphins to extinction. That is not true so why should she be considered a hero?

Karisu

“her dope up hippie friends”

Speaking of ignorance…

shazzb0t

Way to ignore the meat of my comments.

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

“Like I said before if she is such a hero where was she when the last actual dolphin species went extinct?”

In high school. The first dolphin species to go extinct because of humans happened just last year (officially), and it happened in China, so she would have had to be pretty ambitious to land a visa for a trip to China to make a protest as a minor.

Still, I don’t agree with what she did. I hate these “terrorist-protestor” tactics that seem to be all the rage these days, especially in the ocean.

Next season of Heroes: “Save the dolphin, save the world!”

shazzb0t

Thats fine that she was in high school, but the fact remains that she is a hypocrite as is everyone else who condemns Japan’s activities and says nothing about what happens elsewhere.

This was a well designed publicity stunt. Her image in the US has came out of all of this very well. Even on E!’s homepage she is ranked number 3 on a list of celebs that include Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman and Jennifer Lopez. This is the bottom line of it all.

johnny

someone is cynical……..

Dispicable

Hayden is a self promoting turd. She probably lied to Japanese authorities to get in the country for holidays and then break their laws. She should be jailed.
Her crying act was to promote herself and her TV shows. Well the crying won’t win her the Oscars and it didn’t win any sympathy for the dolphins either. There’s nothing sincere about her protest. Except maybe the make up and camera man she brought to the protest.
Hey Hayden, save the salmon and the elks Americans kill every year.
Does she have the guts to protest against the Alaskan and Atlantic fisheries? They’d piss on her.
Hayden, stop wearing leather you hypocrite.

David

If Hayden had actually allowed herself to be arrested that would be a very different ball of very interesting wax.

Hollywood Starlet Jailed in Japan For Trying To Stop Killing of Baby Dolphins

Don’t Kill The Baby Dolphins: Cries Hollywood Star From Japan Jail

Heroes Are The Ones They Put in Jail In Japan

and on and on it would go.

johnny

if she got jailed in japan she could just get hiro to stop time and break her out……

Raku

This is just to get in the press, if this were protests for endangered species of whales i might have a different view on the matter and her cries seemed kinda fake in the video, and if it was a big deal wouldn’t have greenpeace been involved?
Joe Blow

She tried to do something for those poor animals, It,s those greedy fisherman and their barbaric ways who should be dealt with, I dont think she cares to come back to this backward foolish country anyhow.

erika88

Lol troll gtfo
Duz

They’re not on the brink of distinction, none of the species they were hunting were. Those fisherman have families to feed to you know. Don’t be such an ignorant little bitch.

http://hiddenblog1.blogspot.com/ The Unseen One

HA!!! Another sheltered, self-important, self-righteous American liberal comes face to face with the realities of life. Priceless!

shazzb0t

Amen..
Chris

Maybe Hayden is a hero to dolphins (or maybe not since dolphins don’t know what a hero is) but you are *my* hero!

http://hiddenblog1.blogspot.com/ The Unseen One

Heh heh.

http://www.keepingpaceinjapan.com Turner

Her methods may have been a little rudimentary, but the fact remains that if you believe in a cause, talking about it online, posting comments, or making speeches accomplishes very little. At least she was willing to try something.

The Overthinker

Just out of curiosity, what has she achieved?

David

that is good question because if you observe carefully some of the footage of her and her friends exploits they have shown very vividly:

1: Borderline maniacal Japanese shouting and violently gesturing into the cameras.

2. Maniacal Japanese fishermen on a rampage against helpless surboard bikini clad starlets, definately a no no.

3. Maniacal Japanese Legal authorities pressing unqualified and unenforcable charges against a ‘my pony and me’ starlet and her ‘we are doing all we can to save the earth’ wannabe friends.

4. Japan being a lawless maniacal consumer of the earth’s resources, which it is.

5. Japanese generally being maninacal about everything in general which she was VERY effective at getting across.

It was a home run.

The Overthinker

Lawless? Is it actually illegal for them to catch these dolphins?

Hardly a home run though – WW2 taught America that Japan could get pretty maniacal, so what else is new?
shazzb0t

can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or supporting of her actions?

shazzb0t

She was willing to try and stop some individuals from making a livelihood, because it conflicted with her ‘My Little Pony’ upbringing. Talk about getting real; someone should let her know that she isn’t the arbiter of what is right and wrong in the world. Pull the plank out of your eye before accosting someone over the sliver in theirs.

erika88

Someone should lock her in a beef slaughterhouse for a week.

shazzb0t

No kidding. Haha.

Joseph K

Hmm… it’s odd that that’s the first time the phrases “cultural tradition” and “bad habits” have been presented to me in a way that makes me consider potential overlap (even though in her statement they are presented as separate things).

And regardless of sustainability and “I hope that your viewers will be reassured by the fact that Japan is carefully managing marine living resources for the future”, Japan as concept is continuing to lose the PR battle on hunting whales/dolphins to people performing obviously ineffective media stunts like this. Issuing an arrest warrant may serve as a warning to her, but on a PR level, it doesn’t do fishermen any favours.
Mark

It seems obvious she’s not talking about dolphins when she mentions annihilation of resources. If I’m not mistaken, she’s a vegetarian and a member of at least one greenpeace-like organization, and probably sees this as part of the larger fight between antiquated values systems and environmentalism.
Bruce Smith

She is obviously a moron. With luck she may grow out of this stupidity with time.
Girl in Japan

Hayden should be given a medal, and had I known, I would have joined her in a second. Those fisherman are cruel and should be slaughtered in the same manner they carry out on the dolphins. I hate those fisherman SO much. What they do is unnecessarily cruel and anyone who could do that to an animal is not worthy of their own life.

Asuka

If you were given a choice between saving dolphins and putting food on the table for your family, what would you choose?

William

I would choose another line of work. They are slaughtering these animals by choice. No one goes to their house at 4am and wakes them up with a gun to their temple. They go out and kill, then try to find a market for what they bring back. The Taiji economic system is fairly closed, the local population buying the spoils of the hunt because it is there and not because it is necessarily needed. Replace the product and the demand will shift as well.

erika88

You’re saying it like it’s something easy.
Da Kappa

By your logic; perhaps you must be living in a world where food simply appears out of thin air. All forms of food for humans are processed in one form or another. Generally that involves killing of another being. Regardless whether that being is a mammal or ___ (fill in the blank with whatever you eat) it must be sacrificed for your consumption. That involves people to do the processing for YOUR consumption. Don’t disrespect anyone who works hard to support their family with a job that you find so disgusting. If a day arises where the Global community recognizes and acknowledges dolphins as untouchable (as a food source) like human beings (cannibalism), then perhaps I may view this differently.
Girl in Japan

Killing humanely is one thing. Cruelty is another. I would not be comfortable sleeping in the same room as one of those cruel hunters. Look at history– people who torture animals today become the serial killers of tomorrow. Go and look at the videos all over the news (and YouTube) that show how these animals are dragged live onto the street and left for hours with their bellies and heads sliced open, guts and blood spilling into the street, while they cry and gasp for breath, and tell me that isn’t unnecessarily cruel.
ponta

Raising animals “inhumanely” is one thing. Chicken, pigs and cows are raised in horrible conditions　.I don’t want to see people who kill these animals “humanely” and eat these animals live and killed in the same way these animals are raised and killed. Sleeping in the same room as of those raisers and butchers is another.

johnny

the rub here is, these whalers/fishermen ARENT making a livelihood off of whale/dolphin meat. they cant even give the stuff away. they keep doing this as a matter of “national pride”.

shazzb0t

I’d like to see some sort of information to back this assertion up.

ponta

I don’t know how to refute vegetarian’s argument, but it would be cruel to slaughter all the people who kill and eat cows, pigs, chicken in a way these animals are slaughtered.,
shazzb0t

You are naive. Far worse things happen to humans each day and the Haydens of the world are no where to be found. The fact that you would hate these people because of it shows just how sheepish people are when it comes to celebs and their selfish causes. You have obviously decided to go with gut emotion rather than logic when thinking such things.

http://ics.comicgenesis.com wedge

savethewhalesagain.org? I could have sworn those were dolphins
hoihoi

http://i8.tinypic.com/4ms27fc.jpg
she looked so happy here or must of been another dolphin run

CS

This is the IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) info included with the photo.

29TH OCTOBER, 2007 TIJI, OSAKA, JAPAN
Hannah Fraser (mermaid), Hayden Panettiere and Isabel Lucas
The Dolphin & Whale Cove Peaceful Demonstration at Tiji, Japan at the cove where Japanese fishermen slaughter thousands of Whales and Dolphins every year
Dave Rastovich with local and international surfers are bringing attention to the Japanese people the fact that the Mercury levels in these animals is at too dangerous levels for consumption. The best way to use these animals is through Ecotourism, Whale and Dolphin Watching cruises would be the number one choice.Whale activists involved in this protest in Japan were Hayden Panettiere (& her mum) from hit US TV show, Heroes and Australian TV and movie star Isabel Lucas, mermaid Hanna Fraser .

http://www.enjoykorea.jp/tbbs/read.php?board_id=pfree&nid=346260 hiro

This woman is Jekyll and Hyde; please look at here in detail
http://ThiswomanisJekyllandHyde;pleaselookathereindetail hiro

This woman is Jekyll and Hyde; please look at here in detail
http://www.enjoykorea.jp/tbbs/read.php?board_id=pfree&nid=346260
Chris

Effort, once again, is being focused in the wrong direction. Focus it on the poor, starving, and oppressed.
Grinz

I’m dying with curiosity as to what her co-star Masi Oka thinks about all of this?
baza

It`s terrible that the police help the fisherman and allow these meat-heads to continue killing without any protest allowed.

This article is very biased against the American girl.
The poll results merely reflect this. It seems this is a pretty silly website.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

The police don’t make the laws, they enforce them. In this case the fishermen were conducting a dolphin hunt, which is legal in Japan, while the foreign protesters were apparently conducting a protest that was not legal.

If Hayden Panettiere wants to portray herself as a hero of the “Save the Dolphins” movement, she should stop making poorly researched statements. The only thing that’s silly about this post is Hayden’s belief that the Taiji fishermen’s dolphin hunt is “resulting in the annihilation of our planet’s resources and the extinction of our species.”

http://tofusando.blogspot.com Akoua Doffou

LMAO! I knew this was going to happen XD
Libertas

Hmm, …the term “cultural relativism” comes to mind. The sad fact is that few people have the mental capacity to fully understand the concept. Even with all our advancements in science and technology, we live so far below our potential simply because the majority of us are led by our emotions.
http://democracynow.org lolwut?

Honestly, I fail to see whats so wrong with the hunt since its carried out in a sustainable manner. If she wants to piss and moan about that stuff she should look elsewhere, there are much bigger problems in the world.
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Japanese Police Issue Arrest Warrant For Hayden Panettiere

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