Reply #10: Here are some pictures of the activists on the Whaling ship

[tekisui]

The first picture appears to show one activist tied up:



This one shows the two activists with whalers on the ship:



"The Steve Irwin has dispatched a small fast Delta boat and a helicopter to attempt to persuade the Yushin Maru No2 to stop and release the hostages."

Briton Giles Lane, 35, and Australian Benjamin Potts 28, had boarded the Yushin Maru to tell the whalers they were operating "in violation of international conservation law by targeting endangered species in an established whale sanctuary", the society said.

Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research denied the two men were tied up.

"Any accusations that we have tied them up or assaulted them are completely untrue," the Institute's director-general, Minoru Morimoto, said in a statement posted on its Web site.

"It is illegal to board another country's vessels on the high seas.

"As a result, at this stage, they are being held in custody while decisions are made on their future," he said.

He continued: "The two boarded the Yushin Maru after they made attempts to entangle the screw of the vessel using ropes and throwing bottles of acid onto the decks."

Conservationists have been chasing the fleet in an attempt to stop them hunting near the Antarctica coast.

link: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70131-1300737,00.html