GEORGETOWN, P.E.I. — Animal rights activists have lost a legal challenge of Ottawa's right to restrict their movement during seal hunts.

Judge Nancy Orr ruled in provincial court Friday against a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge launched by Paul Watson and 11 protesters from the Sea Shepherd Society.

The protesters filed their charter challenge after they were arrested in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last spring and charged with violating the buffer zone around sealing ships.

The protesters and Watson argue that federal regulations requiring them to stay half a nautical mile from sealing activities is an infringement on their right to freedom of expression.

Orr said their rights were infringed, but she said the infringement is justified because the sealers have a right to earn a livelihood without disruption.

"The applicants' right to freedom of expression has been infringed in this case by . . . the marine mammal regulations," Orr concluded in her decision.

"But the respondent (the federal Fisheries Department) has shown that these are are demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

Charlottetown lawyer John Mitchell, who represents the protesters, said his clients now face a trial Thursday on charges of violating federal regulations.

Mitchell said he expects prosecutors will call witnesses in the case, but he is not certain whether there will be witnesses for the defence.

Most of the protesters involved in the case are Americans.

Watson was in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday and was unavailable for comment.

However, at the time of the incident on ice floes near Iles de la Madeleine, Watson said the protesters were simply trying to take photographs and did not violate the buffer zone.

Watson was angry the RCMP did not lay charges after one of his crew was beaten in the face and had his camera smashed. The only charges laid were against the protesters.

Animal rights activists say they want to observe the annual seal hunt.

They object to the way the hunters, predominantly on Iles de la Madeleine, club the seals and have called on the international community to boycott all Canadian seafood products.

The largest hunt is off Newfoundland, where the majority of animals are shot.

The Canadian government bowed to anti-seal hunt pressure in the 1990s, but has since endorsed the hunt as a cultural right for many Newfoundlanders and Maritimers.