The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise has finally departed the Russian city of Murmansk almost a year after it was seized by Russian authorities in the Pechora Sea during a Greenpeace protest against the first Arctic oil drilling. Russian authorities arrested and imprisoned 28 protesters and 2 journalists, all of whom were eventually released in December 2013 as part of the sweeping Russian amnesty bill that freed at least 25,000 Russian prisoners including the Arctic 30 (as the group came to be known) along with Pussy Riot.*
The mood was high-spirited and merry on twitter; crew members reclaimed the deck, declaring their firm intention to return to the Arctic to continue protesting; in the tweets shown below, among the many activists and celebrities sharing their support, Michelle Thrush along with Emma Thompson and her daughter; more photos here.
Greenpeace spokesperson Faiza Oulahsen said:
“When the captain and crew boarded the
Arctic Sunrise they found it in a bad state, with no maintenance for 10
months, and the ship’s navigation, communications and safety systems
either removed or destroyed.
“The Arctic Sunrise is now headed for Amsterdam, where the
ship will need to undergo extensive repairs, so that it can get back to
protecting the Arctic from reckless oil companies like Shell and
Gazprom”.
*With the U.S.A. having the largest prison industrial complex in the world, we Americans
are still waiting on a similarly sweeping amnesty which requires even higher figures, statistically, to be freed now, considering the total population unjustly incarcerated in this nation.
**Photo credit, top, via Greenpeace, the newly freed Arctic Sunrise vessel departs Murmansk.
Greenpeace International announces that Arctic Sunrise crew members including two journalists are finally going home. All but one of the 26 non-Russian "Arctic 30" were issued their exit visas at the time of the Greenpeace press release.
Twitter has been lively with the information, tracking progress. Below, Mannes Ubels of the Netherlands gets the great news:
Faiza Oulahsen of the Netherlands:
A plane with all six Britons and one of two Canadians, Alexandre Paul, left Saint Petersburg heading for Paris. (Guardian video below.) They made it to London:
Twitter reports that Canadian Paul Ruzycki is also out, arrived in Toronto:
ElLiteral.com reports that Argentina activists Camila Speziale and Miguel Hernan Perez Orsi arrive Saturday morning via Air France in Ezeiza, family members having spoken to them by phone in Paris.
Australian activist Colin Russell is reported out of Russia, bound for Amsterdam, first, where Greenpeace International is located. He is expected back in Hobart January 2nd.
New Zealand activists Jonathan Beauchamp and David John Haussman are reported in transit. Mr. Beauchamp lives in Australia.
Italian activist Cristian D'Alessandro was reported as arriving in Naples today. His father told reporters that he is fine, but would not provide details.
Finland activist Sini Saarela is reported back. Speaking to a crowd of reporters as she arrived in Helsinki, she described the Russian amnesty (video at link) as a publicity stunt.
Danish activist Anne Mie Roer Jensen landed in Copenhagen after having described, on the way out, "100 days of theater of the absurd" while expressing the group's commitment to end oil drilling in the Arctic.
Turkish activist Gizem Akhan is reported as having arrived home in Istanbul (video at link).
Activist and biologist Ana Paula Alminhana Maciel of Brazil is on her way back.
Arctic Sunrise Captain and American Peter Henry Willcox is described in the photo taken below as leaving for the departure lounge at the Saint Petersburg airport:
RMF 24 reports that Tomasz Dziemianczuk of Poland received his exit visa and flies Sunday from Saint Petersburg to Warsaw.
Ruslan Yakushev of the Ukraine has left Russia and is returning home.
Dima Litvinov, a Soviet born Swedish activist, was the first
to leave the country, taking a train across the border to Finland.
News is still awaited concerning Francesco Pisanu of France and Marco Weber of Switzerland.
The Russian activists released include the ship's physician Ekaterina Zaspa, international journalist Andrey Allakhverdov, international photojournalist Denis Sinyakov, and translator Roman Dolgov.
Departing activists speaking with reporters expressed relief that they were going home, while maintaining their
innocence, deep concern about invasive oil drilling in the Arctic, and their commitment to stop drilling in this fragile region of our planet.
Dima Litvinov told press, "I'm glad that this chapter is over but the book still remains to be written. As long as there's threat for the Arctic, as long as there's multinational companies like Gasprom, like Shell, like Exxon - and the puppet regimes intent on raping the Arctic - we'll certainly continue to fight against that and work towards a sane future."
He also said, “I’ve never regretted what we did, not once, not in prison and
definitely not now. Sometimes you just have to stand up and ask to be
counted, and that’s what we did in the Arctic. They didn’t throw us in
jail for what we did, they locked us up because of what we stood for."
More in the Guardian video below as activists departed Russia:
*Photo credit/top, Via Times Live,"Twenty-six of the Arctic 30 (24 Greenpeace International activists and
two freelance journalists) pose in St. Petersburg, in this December 3,
2013 handout from Greenpeace. The four not pictured are: Francesco
Pisanu of France, Andrey Allakhverdov of Russia, Tomasz Dziemianczuk of
Poland and Ekaterina Zaspa of Russia."
Editor's Update, 1.1.2014. The Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo has confirmed reports that all 26 non-Russian Greenpeace activists have left Russia.
Swiss Greenpeace Activist Marco Weber back in Switzerland where he tells the press that he would do it again:
Another photo of Paul Ruzycki in Toronto:
A thank you video is circulating:
And, now it's time for the ship to be returned:
President Putin and the lower house of the Russian parliament have passed a sweeping amnesty bill that will release at least 25,000 Russian prisoners, including the Greenpeace Arctic 30 and the two remaining members of Pussy Riot.
The amnesty affects prisoners convicted of what are usually considered more petty and non-violent offenses, apparently including "hooliganism," which were charges leveraged against both the Greenpeace Arctic 30 activists along with the musician-activists from the group Pussy Riot. Initially, the Arctic 30 were charged with "piracy," but those allegations were reduced.
Pussy Riot defiantly staged an anti-Putin "punk prayer protest" on the podium of a Russian Orthodox Church. The two women still in prison were serving a two year sentence and scheduled for release in March.
The Greenpeace Arctic 30 were arrested by the Russian authorities while scaling an oil rig in the Pechora Sea in non-violent protest of the first oil drilling planned in that ecologically fragile region. Traveling aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, the 30 crew members with 2 journalists faced initially up to fifteen year sentences, then, up to seven years with the adjusted charges.
The arrests of both groups have inspired worldwide protests including millions of people demanding their release.
Al Jazeera reports that the amnesty affects 26,000 people including the "most vulnerable sectors of society," such as mothers of young children, minors, and the elderly. Pussy Riot is also affected under the provision that will release the mothers of young children.
Protesters arrested during a May 2012 Moscow rally will also be released, though persons imprisoned for allegedly hitting police officers during these events will not be freed. That rally took place one day before Putin's inauguration for a third term.
The amnesty bill was drafted by Putin himself and comes in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Russian constitution, going into effect tomorrow, when Pussy Riot is expected to be out from behind bars.
The joyous news spread quickly on twitter, along with measured reminders about the greater issues at stake in the Arctic, and comments about the irony of being freed for crimes one did not commit in the first place:
Greenpeace released more photos here of the Arctic 30 activists having heard the news in Saint Petersburg where they have been out on bail.
Below, a 2009 Greenpeace video with polar explorer Eric Phillips explaining the dramatic effects of climate change on the Greenland Ice Sheet.
If you missed the news, the Greenpeace Arctic 30 were released on bail in Saint Petersburg, late November, and from Murmunsk prison where they were held for two months. An emotional video below as news is shared with the jailed activists and supporters. It's not over, of course, as members of the long-established non-violent organization still face possible seven year sentencing by Russian authorities. The trial is expected prior to the end of February 2014. The Greenpeace activists were arrested at knife and gunpoint in September when two members of the 30 person Arctic Sunrise crew scaled an oil rig in the Pechora Sea to non-violently protest the first oil drilling to target this highly fragile ecosystem. Plans for drilling have been coordinated between the Russian oil company Gasprom and the multi-national oil and gas corporation giant, Shell.
Greenpeace UK reports that 2.5 million people emailed the Russian embassy to demand the release of the Greenpeace activists. At long last, the Russian Embassy has replied.
Read the Greenpeace UK response here.
A phone interview here with British activist Frank Hewetson, one of the Arctic 30 currently out on bail in Saint Petersburg. He describes grim conditions in the prison, the group's hope for a moratorium on Arctic drilling, as well as hopes for their own release by the Russian government. Initial charges of "piracy" carrying 15 year sentences were reduced to "hooliganism" which still equates with extensive prison terms. Greenpeace is, again, an organization with a long-established commitment to non-violent activism, not "hooliganism," and as the Arctic action in question was clearly delineated in advance and videotaped. At a recent Greenpeace Italy running event designed to bring further attention to the current plight of the Arctic 30, and yet another example of the worldwide outpouring of support on behalf of the jailed environmentalists, one of the runners described a popular Italian Free the Arctic 30 protest sign that read, "Guilty of Pacifism," or "Colpevole di pacifismo," an apt response, one thinks, to these transparently false accusations.
*Photo credits/top, via Greenpeace Blogs, bottom, via Greenpeace UK.
A Bill Moyers essay on Pope Francis' recent statements on poverty, unemployment, and the global economy, "a system," the pope says, "that has at its center an idol called 'money.'"
Similarly, Mr. Moyers cites U.S. statistics, along with the failure of the American government to take action on poverty and unemployment in the United States - even taking deliberate steps that directly increase poverty - as with the House of Representatives recently cutting aide to families on the Food Program. More than 21 million Americans need full time work, with 46 million people living at or below the poverty line, while the number of elderly women living in extreme poverty in the U.S. is soaring, the majority of Americans have no ability to save, and with the exception of Romania, no other developed nation has more children living in poverty than the United States.
"Listen," says Mr. Moyers, "That sound you hear is the shredding of the social contract."
Mr.
Moyer's remarks follow on the heels of another interview with Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo, discussing the urgency
of climate action. (Mr. Naido can also be listened to here, speaking about the current plight of 30 Greenpeace activists in Russian custody upon protesting oil drilling in the Arctic.)
Comparing observations made by the pope and in the course of the conversation with Mr. Naidoo, Bill Moyers says, "Capitalism is like fire, a good servant, but a bad master. If we don't dethrone our present system of financial capitalism that rewards those at the top who then use it to rig the rules against even the most reasonable check on their excesses, it will consume us, and that fragile, thin line between democracy and a darker social order will be extinguished."
