Anonymous attacks webpage of Japanese PM over whale-hunting

The Anonymous hackers group Thursday blocked the personal webpage of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to protest against Japan’s whalehunting program.

Abe’s webpage remains partially blocked due to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, claimed by the international group of hackers, Anonymous, on Twitter, asserting hunting whales is not a cultural right.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference Thursday the cyberattack resulted in limited access to Abe’s website, adding the police are investigating the incident.

The Anonymous attack comes as a reprisal for the government’s decision to resume its controversial whalehunting program, under which Japan has already caught 333 specimens in the Antarctic Ocean this season for ‘scientific purposes’.

Around thirty countries, including United States, Mexico, Australia and those from the European Union, this week presented a joint complaint to the Japanese government against whalehunting, which is also condemned by ecologists.

In November, Anonymous had also taken down several Japanese websites related to fishing of cetaceans, to protest against hunting of dolphins in Taiji, in western Japan.