Tokyo, Jun The "Hakuyo Maru Number 5," a g-ton fishing boat owned Nishide fishing firm was seized by [the Soviets while engaged in crab-fishing off the Kamchatka Coast. according to the Asahi Shimbun chain of newspapers.
It is reported that the fate of 12 members of the crew is unknown since they were kidnapped by a Soviet coastguard cutter. The Asahi states that the Soviet Consulate at Hakodate, with the fishery season approaching, is "oppressing" Japanese fisherman by declining to grant them visas.
Twenty fishermen and employees of the Nichiro Fishery Company. it stated, have already been refused by the Soviet Consulate. The Yomiuri Shimbun declares that the Hakuyo Maru was taken towards Cape Ozerni, on the Kamchatka Peninsula, by the Soviet cutter.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.