Greenpeace Activists Jailed in Russia - Update

(Moscow, Russia)

A Russian court ruled Monday to grant bail to three people out of the Greenpeace group that was detained in September for mounting a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic Sea.

A judge at Kalininsky District Court in St. Petersburg set the bail for freelance photographer Denis Sinyakov, who was on an assignment to cover the Greenpeace protest in the Arctic, and Yekaterina Zaspa, who was ship doctor for the environmental organization’s Arctic Sunrise icebreaker, at 2 million rubles ($61,500) per person. Activist Andrei Allakhverdov was also granted bail, Greenpeace tweeted late Monday.

So three from the Arctic 30 will be released when the court receives the bail amount.

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Greenpeace Activists Jailed in Russia
[Previous 11/6/13 post]
(Moscow, Russia)

Greenpeace activists took to the Moscow River in a motorboat on Wednesday in support of the Arctic Sunrise's multinational crew, whose detention in Russia was discussed on the same day at a maritime tribunal in Germany.

The activists sailed past the Kremlin holding yellow flags which read, "Free the Arctic 30," referring to the 30 crew members who are being held in Murmansk after being charged with hooliganism for staging a protest at the Russian-owned Prirazlomnaya oil platform in September.

"We ask all of those who care to join the movement in defense of the detainees, and together with us demand their quick release," Greenpeace said Wednesday in a statement.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, based in the German city of Hamburg, on Wednesday considered the Netherland's request for the crew of the Arctic Sunrise, which sails under the Dutch flag, to be released. The Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said that he expects a ruling to be delivered on Nov. 21, Interfax reported.

In cases of national sovereignty, Russia reportedly doesn't recognize the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.