All news

Greenpeace activists being released from detention centre

Greenpeace paid a 6 million ruble bail for photographer Denis Sinyakov, a Russian medic on the Arctic Sunrise ship, Yekaterina Zaspa, and Brazilian citizen Ana Paula Alminhana Maciel

MOSCOW, November 19. /ITAR-TASS/. On Monday, St. Petersburg’s Kalininsky district court released on bail three Greenpeace activists who had been arrested for a Greenpeace protest against offshore Arctic drilling at the oil rig Prirazlomnaya, in Russian Arctic waters, on September 18. Greenpeace paid a 6 million ruble bail for photographer Denis Sinyakov, a Russian medic on the Arctic Sunrise ship, Yekaterina Zaspa, and Brazilian citizen Ana Paula Alminhana Maciel.

A Greenpeace lawyer, Mikhail Kreindlin, told RBC Daily that the trials against Greenpeace activists would take place during the week. Greenpeace was ready to pay a 2 million ruble bail for every activist. Taking into account the fact, that Greenpeace activists face charges of hooliganism instead of piracy, this will be a very huge bail sum. If the courts keep activists in custody, Greenpeace will appeal against these verdicts.

Musical critic and Greenpeace member Artemy Troitsky told the daily that neither medic Zaspa, nor radio operator Colin Russell was among those who tried to climb the rig Prirazlomnaya. He believes that Russia will make concessions in the Greenpeace case over negative international reaction. “My forecast is that the Arctic Sunrise crew will be released until the end of the year,” Artemy Troitsky said.

Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the presidential council on human rights, visited members of the Arctic Sunrise in detention wards, Novye Izvestiya reported. He listened to complaints and requests of Greenpeace activists accused of hooliganism. Fedotov said in general, the activists did not complain of their detention conditions.

The activists’ main claims refer to their daily needs, Fedotov was quoted by the newspaper as saying. In particular, ecologists complain of too thin mattresses for sleeping, the lack of books and magazines in English in the detention centre’s library and poor choice of TV channels.

“The detainees strongly suffer from lack of language environment they used to live in,” Mikhail Fedotov said. Some of them complained that since their transfer from Murmansk to St. Petersburg they could not meet with their countries’ consuls. But most of all the detainees “suffer from realizing injustice of the situation they find themselves in,” he said.

 

Itar-Tass is not responsible for the material quoted in these press reviews.