Russian state prosecutors have today begun charging protesters with piracy after an attempt to board an Arctic oil rig last month.
Thirteen of the thirty activists who were arrested after the incident have been charged with piracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.
Among them were British videographer Kieron Bryan, Brazilian Ana Paula Alminhana, Roman Dolgov from Russia, Finnish activist Sini Saarela, and Dima Litvinov, an activist with Swedish and U.S. citizenship.
Greenpeace said it expected other activists to faces similar charges, with the environmental group’s executive director Kumi Naidoo condemned the move.
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“A charge of piracy is being laid against men and women whose only crime is to be possessed of a conscience,” he said.
“This is an outrage and represents nothing less than 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 utterly irrational, it is designed to intimidate and silence us, but we will not be cowed.”
Meanwhile new images showing the moment Russian soldiers stormed the Arctic Sunrise vessel the activists were on have been released.
Coastguard officials seized the vessel and its crew two weeks ago, towing it to Murmansk after the September 18th attempt to board Gazprom’s’s Prirazlomnaya platform in the Arctic.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the group’s peaceful aims did not justify the ‘attack’ on the rig, describing the campaigners’ actions as a ‘real threat’ to safety.
The Gazprom rig is due to start operating by the end of the year, with peak output of 120,000 barrels of oil a day within six years.