A Russian court has sentenced a group of foreign and Russian Greenpeace activists to two-month jail terms for their protest bid at an offshore oil drilling platform in the Arctic.
A district court in the northern Russian city of Murmansk denied bail on Thursday to the American captain of the Greenpeace ship and 20 other activists who were on board the vessel, the Arctic Sunrise, and announced that they could all be kept in custody until November 24, RIA Novosti reported Thursday, citing statements by the environmental group.
Further sentences on the continuing detention of the remaining activists are expected to be issued by the court throughout the day.
According to the report, 30 activists of 19 different nationalities were arrested when Russian border guards stormed the Greenpeace icebreaker vessel on September 19, a day after two of its activists climbed a Russian oil rig in the Pechora Sea to protest the environmental impact of oil drilling on the Arctic™s fragile ecosystem.
They Greenpeace activist are currently under investigation for piracy, which carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence in Russia. No charges have so far been filed in the case.
Russia™s Investigative Committee said in a Thursday statement that it had asked the court to sanction two-month custody for all those arrested on the Arctic Sunrise, although the powerful law enforcement agency later appeared to backtrack, with its spokesman, Vladimir Markin, stating that he œdid not exclude” that the activists could be released from jail before a trial.
Greenpeace, however, stated that the Murmansk court sentenced eight Greenpeace activists to three days in jail until a new court hearing.
It was not immediately clear why the court had ruled differently in their cases.
Greenpeace further announced on Thursday that its lawyers would appeal against the court™s ruling to keep the activists under detention.
Meanwhile, the 30 activists on board the Arctic Sunrise were transferred to a detention facility in Murmansk earlier this week after their ship was towed into the city™s port, refusing to respond to questions from investigators, citing their constitutional rights in Russia.
The main target of the environmental activists was the Prirazlomnaya oil rig, owned by a subsidiary of Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom, and a flagship project in Russia™s efforts to kick-start its offshore drilling activities in the Arctic.
This is while major foreign oil corporatations such as Exxon Mobil, Eni and Statoil have signed lucrative deals with state-owned oil monolith Rosneft to work in Russia™s Arctic region.
Greenpeace, meanwhile, insists that its protest effort was peaceful, censuring the use of force by armed Russian border guards in black balaclavas, who fired warning shots at the Arctic Sunrise and then seized the vessel, descending onto its deck by helicopter.
œThe Russian authorities are trying to scare people who stand up to the oil industry in the Arctic, but this blatant intimidation will not succeed,” said Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace International, in a statement released Thursday as the news about initial court sentences surfaced.
œWe call on people in Russia and around the world to stand with our activists and defend their right to peaceful protest,” Naidoo added.
Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized on September 25 that the actions of the Greenpeace activists did not amount to piracy but were ˜illegal.™
œIt™s completely obvious that they breached international law by coming within dangerous proximity of the oil rig. There was a threat to people™s lives,” Putin said in a conference to Arctic issues.
MFB/HSN
Copyright: Press TV