Anonymous Hacks Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s Website To Protest Whale Hunt, Threatens More Cyberattacks

Anonymous said Thursday that it crashed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s official website over the country’s whaling plans. The Twitter account, purported to be associated with the hacking group, also retweeted anti-whaling messages, some of them urging Abe not to eat whale meat and to go vegan.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that one of Abe's websites could not be accessed since early Thursday and an investigation is underway, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Suga later said that the website was partially restored.

"Access to Abe’s personal website is indeed limited. We do not have information on whether the attack was actually committed by the Anonymous group of hackers," Suga said, according to Sputnik News, adding that investigators were assessing the extent of the damage from the cyberattack.

The Anonymous account also posted a message saying that the group was responsible for dozens of earlier attacks, and threatened to take Abe's website down if Japanese authorities continued their whaling program.

Despite several protests from anti-whaling groups, Japan resumed its annual Antarctic whale hunt -- which it claims is for research purposes -- last week under a revised plan after the International Court of Justice found its earlier program unscientific.

Last month, Japan dispatched its whaling fleet for the Antarctic for a three-month hunt, saying that under the revised plan Tokyo plans to catch up to 333 minke whales each year, about one-third of what it used to kill earlier.

Scientists from Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the U.S., have argued that non-lethal scientific research can also yield fruitful results similar to those that call for the animal's killing.

Here are some of the anti-whaling messages that Anonymous retweeted Thursday.