Russia’s Imprisonment of Greenpeace Freelance Photographer Crosses the Line

Russia’s Imprisonment of Greenpeace Freelance Photographer Crosses the Line | gCaptain

I wasn’t there so I can’t vouch for what really happened, but from reading the news I would think that YES, the Greenpeace activists could and should be charged with multiple violations.

Yes, the photographer/journalist has certain rights (here in the USA- maybe not in Russia!). I think he knew very well what he was getting into. Greenpeace has done this kind of stunt before (and not only on the Disco)!

The Arctic Sunrise violated ALL the rules of maritime traffic. There are 500 meter security zones around drilling operations. Greenpeace surely knew that. The vessel captain and crew absolutely must know that! They’re even marked on the charts! It is illegal for ANYONE to enter that zone without asking and being granted permission from the rig.

The Arctic Sunrise at the very least helped the Greenpeace activists in their attempts to board the Russian rig. That boarding can certainly be seen as piracy. It is of course illegal even if they did not intend to harm anybody or steal anything. It is a dangerous place and could have resulted in a major accident (which of course would have been blamed on the drilling company).

Of course I don’t want to see the Arctic ruined by oil spills either. But I can’t agree with Greenpeaces’ tactics. Either they fight to change the laws so that there will be no Arctic drilling, or they fight to change peoples minds.

The ONLY way we are ever going to not NEED the oil is for people to limit the growth of the human population. Either that, or come up with some miracle energy source that is cheap, efficient and can replace everything we use oil for today. There is nothing even close to oils ability to provide the things we NEED to survive now.

Greenpeace Protest Ship Threatened, Leaves Kara

Greenpeace Protest Ship Threatened, Leaves Kara.

I think Greenpeace does some good but they go overboard (literally) sometimes. I don’t think the Russians were justified to deny their entry into their waters. There is the principle of freedom of the high seas and we have always been allowed the right to sail freely from one place to another without interference. Apparently the USA has stopped standing up for any kind of freedom to travel, they prove this every day but forcing people to submit to a strip search just to fly somewhere (anywhere)! Since the US has so obviously given up defending freedom, I guess the Russians figure they can do it some more too. They probably just figure Greenpeace is going to cause a mess and they don’t want to deal with it so they stop it before it happens (prior restraint- we are doing a lot of that here too, although that is ALSO against all our principles).