Two Greenpeace International activists, Sini Saarela (Finland) and Marco Weber (Switzerland), were charged with piracy by Russian authorities today. Charges were filed for climbing onto an Arctic offshore drilling platform owned by the Russian state-controlled oil giant Gazprom.
Two weeks ago, on Wednesday 18 September, Saarela and Weber were arrested in Pechora Sea, in the Russian Arctic. They were protesting against Gazprom’s Arctic on oil drilling rig Prirazlomnaja.
On the next day Russian coast guard rose illegally to Greenpeace International’s ship Arctic Sunrise, which was in international waters. Coast guard’s armed men kept 30 Greenpeace activists captured for five days, when the ship was towed towards the harbor of Murmansk.
Once there, 30 activists were taken to be interrogated, and at the trial on 26 September most of the activists were sentenced to pre-trial detention for two months because of possible piracy suspicions.
What were they there pirating for? Oil?
(Source: Greenpeace – in Finnish)
One comment
GO GREENPEACE PIRATES!! I AM 14 AND I SUPPORT YOU!! YOU ARE MY HEROES!! I WANT TO BE AN ENVIRONMENTAL LAWYER WHEN I GROW UP!! GO GREENPEACE!!!