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Greenpeace activists face piracy probe in Russia
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Russia yesterday opened a criminal probe into suspected piracy against foreign and local activists from environmental lobby group Greenpeace who staged an open sea protest over the Arctic oil work of the energy giant Gazprom.
Four Russians and 26 foreign nationals could face up to 15 years in jail if the case comes to trial after two activists climbed up a Gazprom oil platform in the Barents Sea in a protest on September 18.
A day after the protest, agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service seized control of the activists’ Arctic Sunrise vessel by descending onto the deck from helicopters.
The Dutch-flagged ship anchored yesterday off the coast of Murmansk after being towed from the scene of the incident by Russian border guards in a voyage lasting several days.
The chief spokesman for the powerful Investigative Committee said regional security authorities had launched a criminal probe for piracy “undertaken by an organized group.”
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin warned that the activists would be prosecuted regardless of their citizenship.
“All persons who attacked the (oil) platform, regardless of their citizenship, will be brought to criminal responsibility,” he said.
Support for ‘Arctic 30’
Greenpeace has condemned the Russian action and said it had received some 400,000 e-mails and letters of support for the “Arctic 30.”
“Our activists did nothing to warrant the reaction we’ve seen from the Russian authorities,” Greenpeace’s International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said.
Russia’s slice of the Arctic is generating growing interest from energy producers as gradually rising temperatures open sea lanes and reveal the vast oil and natural gas reserves thought to be buried below.
But Greenpeace argues the firms have no plan in place to deal with potential oil spills in a previously unexplored environment.
The icebreaker had been monitoring exploration activities of Gazprom and state oil firm Rosneft for most of the past two months.
A day before Russian security forces moved in on the Arctic Sunrise, Greenpeace said border guards had detained the two activists from Finland and Switzerland who had climbed up the side of the Gazprom platform. Russian navy patrol boats also fired warning shots at the ship.
The pair were later returned to their ship where they were placed under arrest along with the entire crew and locked in the Arctic Sunrise’s mess.
Greenpeace says the Russian action was illegal because the Arctic Sunrise was in international waters at the time of the raid.
But Markin argued that the ship was “in the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation” when boarded by agents.
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