Source: HRO.org (info) 

• Murmansk region  Political prisoners  Security services  Access to justice  Harassment of activists

Lawyers for the international environmental organization Greenpeace have lodged an appeal against the detention of the crew members of the ship Artic Sunrise. Appeals have already been lodged against the detention of 22 members, and the appeals for the eight remaining members will soon be filed.

FlashNord, quoting Greenpeace representative Anna Smirnova, reported on the appeals on the 30th of September 2013.

On the 26th of September a district court in Murmansk remanded in custody 22 members of the Greenpeace ship’s crew for two months on suspicion of piracy. Photographer Denis Sinyakov is among those detained. He was on board the Arctic Sunrise through a contract with Greenpeace, in order to fulfil an editorial assignment for Lenta.ru.

Eight other members on board the ship were remanded in custody on 29 of September for the same length of time. At the time of writing, their lawyers still have three days to file an appeal against their detention.

The charge of piracy (Article 227 of the Russian Criminal Code) has been brought against the Arctic Sunrise crew in connection with the activists’ attempt to scale the Gazprom-owned Prirazlomnaya drilling rig in the Pechora Sea.

Greenpeace had been trying to attract attention to the dangers of energy production in the Arctic Shelf. However, the Russian authorities in the form of the Investigative Committee regard the action as a violation of national sovereignty.

FSB employees arrested two of the activists on 18 September, as they attempted to put a protest banner on the Gazprom-owned Prirazlomnaya oil rig.

The next day security forces seized the environmentalists’ ship and towed it to the Kola Bay, and the crew was placed in pre-trial detention in Murmansk.

As well as the activists, the ship’s command is also under detention, including the ship’s captain – US citizen Peter Willcox.

Petition in support of the environmentalists on the Arctic Sunrise 



Greenpeace activist Dmitry Litvinov, son of Soviet political prisoner Pavel Mikhailovich Litvinov and a Swedish citizen, has been remanded in custody by a Murmansk court for two months, for his participation in the environmental protest on the Gazprom-owned Arctic oil rig.