A few days ago, several Australian activists boarded a Japanese whaling ship. They were captured and imprisoned, and are most likely facing criminal charges in Japan. Of course, the Australian government has snapped into action in an attempt to save those poor Australians from being tried by the horrible Japanese whalers.
This really irritates me. Why should they be exempt from criminal charges, just because they were fighting for something? They did illegally board that ship in international waters, and, as my dad pointed out, that is technically and legally piracy.
I don't understand why the it has fallen to the Australian government to get these men out of this situation. It is not the responsibility of the government to exempt men from their crimes, especially not crimes of an international nature.
There was another story a few months ago about a 14 year old Australian boy who was arrested for drug possession in Bali. There was outrage! Why should an Australian be arrested? The government was working towards getting him back to Australia.
While this was happening, all I could think was "Why is it their responsibilty" They knew for a fact that this boy had committed the crimes he was accused of - he had bought the drugs from somebody on the street in Bali. Yet the media was all over every angle of his story.
To all makes me wonder, what is the government's responsibility, and do they really have any right in interfering with the legal system of another country? I also wonder what decides which case to be involved in - they can't be involved in everything.
To me, in doesn't seem right, and what I really want is for the Japanese government to tell the Australian government to, in more polite terms, piss off, because it honestly is non of their concern, and nothing they can say is going to change the fact that those activists did break the law.
