THE HAGUE, The Netherlands – The Netherlands said Friday it has started legal action to free 30 crew members of Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise, charged by Russia with piracy after a protest against Arctic oil drilling.
“The Netherlands, as the state under whose flag the Arctic Sunrise sails, today started an arbitration process on the basis of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea,” Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said in a letter in parliament.
The action is against what the Netherlands sees “as the unlawful detention of the ship (and) to have it released and its crew freed,” Timmermans wrote.
Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Friso Wijnen told AFP the Netherlands believed the crew’s arrest was “illegal” as Russia should have first asked Dutch authorities’ permission to board the ship.
Russian investigators said on Thursday they have charged all Arctic Sunrise crew members with piracy, an offence that carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years in Russia.
READ: 30 Greenpeace activists, journalists charged with piracy
A court in the northern city of Murmansk last week remanded the crew members in custody for two months, including freelance journalists, pending an investigation into their mid-September protest on an oil platform owned by energy giant Gazprom.
Timmermans wrote that if there was no progress in the next two weeks, the Netherlands could take their case to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg.
The UN-backed independent tribunal based in the northern German port city opened its doors in 1994, shortly after the UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force.
It has the power to make rulings based on the Convention, which spells out the law and rules governing the world’s oceans, seas and its resources.
Russian investigators accused the activists of trying to seize property with threats of violence.
The Netherlands has previously called for the crew to be released, but also said that Russia has the right to try them.
Timmermans said in his letter that the Netherlands “continues to prefer a diplomatic solution.”
Greenpeace denies the crew members — who come from 18 different countries including Britain, Russia, New Zealand, Canada and France — committed any crime.
A five-member arbitral tribunal will now be set up, and the Netherlands can ask for the immediate release of the ship and crew as a provisional measure, Greenpeace said.
The September 18 protest saw several activists scale the oil platform in the Barents Sea to denounce Russia’s plans to drill in the Arctic.
Russian border guards then lowered themselves onto the Dutch-flagged Arctic Sunrise from a helicopter, locked up the crew and towed the ship to Murmansk located nearly 2,000 kilometres north of Moscow.
Greenpeace said it is planning a number of solidarity demonstrations around the world on Saturday including at the Russian embassy in The Hague.
Greenpeace’s global operations are headquartered in Amsterdam.
In Moscow, demonstrators will rally at Gorky Park and at Gazprom’s headquarters, before moving to the Kremlin and Lubyanka Square.
President Vladimir Putin has said that in his opinion the activists were not pirates but had breached international law by getting dangerously close to the oil rig.
Campaign groups including Human Rights Watch have called for their release.
The unusually tough charges have sparked comparisons with the case of the Pussy Riot punks who were last year sentenced to two years in a penal colony for demonstrating against Putin in a Moscow church.
Greenpeace held a similar protest at the same oil platform last year without incurring any punishment. – Rappler.com
There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.