November 29, 2013 Update
On November 12, Arctic Sunrise crew and Greenpeace activists were transported from Murmansk to Saint Petersburg. Starting on November 18, Kalininski and Primosrki district courts of St. Petersburg began hearing cases about the extension of their pre-trial detention, granting bail to 29 of them in groups over the course of the following 4 days . The Primorski district court prolonged the pre-trial detention for Colin Russell of Australia until February 24, 2014. On November 28, the St. Petersburg city court upon hearing Russell’s appeal also granted him bail. He was released on November 29. All 30 continue to face hooliganism charges.
October 4, 2013 Update
On October 3, Murmansk prosecutors charged the remaining 16 people who had been aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise with piracy. All 30 people who were aboard Arctic Sunrise face the piracy charge, and a court has ordered them to two months of pretrial custody while the prosecution carries out its investigation.
October 2, 2013 Update
On October 2, Murmansk prosecutors charged 14 people who had been aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise with piracy. The crime of piracy under Russian law requires the use of violence or the threat to use violence to raid a sea vessel for personal gain. The two Greenpeace activists who attempted to climb on the outer structures of the Gazprom oil rig were unarmed and used mountain climbing equipment and ropes.
“Charging these activists with piracy is disproportionate and absurd,” said Tanya Cooper, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It appears to be aimed more at dissuading environmental activists from future protests against Russia’s oil drilling projects in the Arctic than at holding anyone accountable for any actual infraction.”
According to Greenpeace, those charged include nine Greenpeace activists: Sini Saarela, Finnish; Roman Dolgov, Russian; Anthony Perrett,Alexandra Harris,and Philip Ball,British; Dima Litvinov, Swedish/American; Camila Speziale, Argentinian; Faiza Oulahsen, Dutch; Tomaz Dziemianczuk, Polish; four crew members: Ana Paula Alminhana Maciel, Brazilian; Mannes Ubels, Dutch; and a Russian and a Ukrainian, whose names are withheld at the request of Greenpeace, as well as Kieron Bryan, a freelance videographer from the United Kingdom.
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(Moscow) – Russianauthorities should immediately release from custody all 30 people arrested in connection with a Greenpeace protest in the Pechora Sea.
On September 26, 2013, a court in Murmansk, 1,485 kilometers north of Moscow, sent 22 of those arrested to pretrial custody for two months pending an investigation into a piracy charge against them. On September 29, authorities ordered two months of pretrial custody for the remaining eight activists on the same charge.
“The Russian authorities are using a bogus charge to justify keeping the Greenpeace activists locked up for two months,” said Tanya Cooper, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Accusing the activists of piracy is a grotesque distortion of the law that appears to be aimed more at intimidating Greenpeace than upholding law and order.”
On September 18, Greenpeace, the international environmental group, organized a protest in the Pechora Sea against oil drilling in the Arctic, which they believe would endanger the region’s wildlife. A Greenpeace spokesperson told Human Rights Watch that Russian security forces detained two activists as they attempted to climb onto the outer structures of the Prirazmolnaya oil drilling platform, owned by the Russian state company Gazprom.
On September 19, the coastal guard of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) detained the remaining 28 Greenpeace activists and crew on board their ship, Arctic Sunrise. The people Russia detained include citizens of 18 countries, including four Russian nationals. Among them are activists, ship personnel, cooks, a doctor, and a Russian photographer and a British videographer who were documenting the protest.
In statements issued on September 26 and 27, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatović, urged the Russian authorities to release the photographer and the videographer. She saidit was “not acceptable to imprison journalists for doing their work.”
Russia’s investigative committee released a statementon September 24, announcing that a preliminary investigation had been opened into an “assault at Prirazmolnaya oil rig,” describing the activists’ actions as “piracy, committed by an organized group.” Under Russian law, the crime of piracy, which involves using violence and raiding a sea vessel to achieve personal gain, carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The investigative committee indicated that the two activists “tried to board [the platform] illegally” and “ignored warnings” and lawful demands by FSB personnel. Such actions are typically treated as administrative offenses in Russia and would not result in pretrial detention.
Greenpeace staff in Moscow told Human Rights Watch that Russian security officials threatened the activists with violence and shot multiple times into the air and water surrounding Greenpeace inflatable boats during the protest on September 18. The authorities should investigate those alleged threats and the use of firearms, Human Rights Watch said. The next day the security forces raided Arctic Sunrise, seized the remaining crew, and towed the ship to Murmansk.
Greenpeace staff told Human Rights Watch that during the four-day sea journey to Murmansk, Russian security officials did not allow activists to move freely around their ship. The officials also confiscated the activists’ mobile phones, preventing them from calling the Greenpeace headquarters for legal counsel.
Greenpeace has protested oil drilling at Russian facilities in the Arctic sea on previous occasions without its personnel facing criminal prosecution. In August 2012 Russian authorities did not interfere with a similar Greenpeace protest when its activists boarded the Prirazmolnaya oil drilling platform. In August 2013 a Greenpeace ship spent two days following a vessel carrying out seismic oil exploration in the Barents Sea by another Russian state oil company, Rosneft.
“Both Russian and international law provides protections to protesters, whether on land or at sea,” Cooper said. “Detaining these activists for piracy is a wildly disproportionate response to Greenpeace’s protest.”
