Conservation group Sea Shepherd says two of its crew members are being held against their will on a Japanese whaling ship after delivering a letter to the captain.

Spokes Person for Byron Whale Action Group and Sea Shepherd member Dean Jefferys said " Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd must demand Japan releases their Australian and British hostages.

"In the light that the Japanese whaling has just been declared illegal in the Federal court I am also calling on the Federal Government to enforce the judgement as they said they would in a pre election promise. The Government has their Oceanic Viking ship in the area and they should hand the whalers the injunction, instruct them to return to Japan and retrieve the hostages immediately." Jefferys said.

Sea Shepherd says Australian Benjamin Potts and British citizen Giles Lane were tied to the radar mast of the whaling ship after they boarded with a message to inform them they were killing whales illegally.

Sea Shepherd says the captain of the whaling vessel has refused their demands for the release of the crew. The group's media director Christine Vasic says the captain of the Sea Shepherd's ship attempted to reach the Japanese whaling ship by radio before sending the crew over. "He issued a written statement and dispatched a Zodiac ship," she said."Two of the crew members then boarded the Japanese vessel to deliver the message to the captain." They were successful in delivering the message, but then they were not allowed to leave and return back to our vessel.

Both men boarded the Yushin Maru to deliver a message to the Japanese captain that the whalers were in violation of international conservation law by targeting endangered species in an established whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling. They also notified the captain that Australia had just passed a court ruling barring Japanese whalers from the Australian Antarctic Economic Exclusion Zone.

"The Yushin Maru is now still moving ahead away from us and not responding to radio contact." A spokesman for Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research has confirmed that the two are being held in a locked room, but denies they were tied up. But Ms Vasic says the two men have a right to stop whaling activities. "The United Nations' World Charter on Nature does give individuals and non-governmental organisations the right to police and stop those illegal activities," she said. "That's what our vessel is down there to do, and that's what they have requested that the whaling vessel do, which is cease and desist their illegal whaling activities." Sea Shepherd News, 16/01/08.