Greenpeace: Russia charges four Britons with piracy

FOUR Britons campaigning against oil drilling in the Arctic have been charged with piracy by the Russian authorities.

A Greenpeace picture taken with camera phone shows Russian security forces boarding the environmental bodys ship. Picture: Greenpeace

Videographer Kieron Bryan, along with British activists Anthony Perrett, Philip Ball and Alexandra Harris, are among a 14-strong group associated with the environmental organisation Greenpeace who have been charged with piracy after allegedly attempting to access an offshore oil platform. They face up to 15 years in prison.

Armed Russian security officers stormed the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise on 18 September and arrested all 30 people from 18 countries on board following the protest at the platform owned by Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. Russian investigators said the ship had violated a security zone around the Prirazlomnaya platform and claimed it was carrying equipment whose purpose was still “unclear”.

A number of international companies plan to drill for oil in the Arctic in the coming months, a move environmental campaigners claim will damage fragile ecosystems in the area.

A further two Britons, Frank Hewetson and Ian Rogers, who were also on the ship, were detained in Murmansk.

Dutch activists Faiza Oulahsen and Mannes Ubels are among those charged with piracy, as well as Argentine Camila Speziale, Finn Sini Saarela, Dmitry Litvinov, a dual US-Swedish citizen, and Pole Tomaz Dziemianczuk. Two crew members, a Russian and a Ukrainian, have also been charged.

The 14 activists were taken from jail to be formally charged with “piracy of an organised group”.

Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo branded the charges “the most serious threat to Greenpeace’s peaceful environmental activism since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior”, referencing the Aberdeen-built Greenpeace ship sunk by French intelligence agents in New Zealand in 1985.

“A charge of piracy is being laid against men and women whose only crime is to be possessed of a conscience,” said Mr Naidoo. “This is an assault on the very principle of peaceful protest. Any claim that these activists are pirates is as absurd as it is abominable. It is designed to intimidate and silence us, but we will not be cowed.”

Mr Naidoo said the “courageous” crew of the Greenpeace ship had protested at the Gazprom rig because they felt “compelled to bear witness to the slow but unrelenting destruction of the Arctic”.

“The ice is retreating, oil companies are moving north to drill for the fuels that are driving that melting, species are at risk, including our own,” he added.

John Dalhuisen of Amnesty International, said: “These absurd piracy charges make a mockery of the Russian justice system and should be dropped immediately.”

Earlier this week, Ms Oulahsen spoke of the group’s despondency in a message from her cell in Murmansk.

“I have no idea how this is going to end or how long it’s going to take,” she wrote. “The uncertainty drives me crazy.”

Mr Bryan’s parents have previously said they are “extremely worried” about their 29-year-old son, a freelance filmmaker. He was hired on a short-term contract by Greenpeace to document its work on Russian oil exploration in the Arctic Circle.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has said he does not believe the activists are pirates, but has defended their detention, claiming they may have broken international law.