Russia Accuses Greenpeace Crew of 'Piracy' in Arctic
Greenpeace released a picture of activists scaling the Prirazlomnaya oil platform
Russian
prosecutors have accused around 30 Greenpeace activists of piracy and
say they will prosecute all of them for trying to board an Arctic oil
platform.
Russia's Investigative Committee, modelled on the FBI, will question the activists. Six Britons are among them.Their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, is being towed to the port of Murmansk.
Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said "all those who assaulted the platform, regardless of nationality, will be prosecuted".
The campaigners were detained on Thursday along with their ship after two Greenpeace activists tried to climb onto a Gazprom offshore platform, in a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic.
The ship was raided by armed Russian men in balaclavas who abseiled down from helicopters. The ship was seized in the Pechora Sea, near the rig.
Greenpeace said the Russian authorities "are holding 30 of our activists", though that figure was not confirmed by Russian officials.
Legal dispute In a statement on Tuesday, Greenpeace said its ship had arrived in a fjord near Murmansk accompanied by a tug boat and the Russian Coast Guard vessel Ladoga.
"Greenpeace International lawyers are demanding immediate access to the 30 activists who have been held for over four days without legal or consular assistance. It is still not known whether Russia intends to lay formal charges and Greenpeace has not received any formal contact from the authorities," it said.
The environmental organisation said its protest against "dangerous Arctic oil drilling" was peaceful and in line with its "strong principles".
"Our activists did nothing to warrant the reaction we've seen from the Russian authorities," it said.
Mr Markin described the protest as "an attempt to seize a drilling platform by storm" and said it raised "legitimate doubts about their intentions". The ship "was loaded with electronics whose purpose was not clear", he said.
"It's hard to believe that the so-called activists did not know that the platform is an installation with a high hazard level, and any unauthorised actions on it can lead to an accident, which would not only endanger the people aboard it but also the ecology, which is being protected zealously," he said.
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