Arctic 30 cannot return home for Christmas

The Arctic 30 have been told they cannot leave Russia and return home for Christmas despite a ruling by an international court ordering their release.

The environmental charity Greenpeace has revealed that Russia investigative committee has written to one of its activists- Anne Mie Jensen from Denmark - indicating that they are not free to leave the country.

The charity’s lawyers have said that they expect this to be the case for all of the non-Russian members of the Arctic 30, including six Britons.

Three from Devon, Alexandra Harris, Iain Rogers and Kieron Bryan are among the group of Greenpeace Activists and Journalists who face charges for Hooliganism following a protest at a Russian state-sponsored, Gazprom oil drilling platform in the Arctic Circle.

Last week Greenpeace lawyers for the Arctic 30 asked the Committee to contact Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) and request visas so they can leave Russia and later return if summoned by the authorities.

However in its letter to Ms Jensen, the Committee has said it is not willing to ask the FMS to issue the visas. The FMS has previously said it will not issue visas until it receives a direct request from the Investigative Committee.

The decision means that Russia is now in breach of a ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) which ordered Russia to allow the Arctic 30 to leave the country immediately and to release the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, as soon as a bond of 3.6m euros in the form of a bank guarantee was paid.

The bond was posted by the Government of the Netherlands - where the Arctic Sunrise is registered - on 29th November, but Russia has yet to honour the agreement.

Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw said: "It is outrageous that the Arctic 30 remain stuck in Russia facing trumped up charges given not a single international lawyer whose view I have seen thinks they did anything illegal. The contempt with which the Russian authorities have treated the ITLOS ruling is also very worrying and illustrates how far Russia has gone backwards under the Putin regime"

Greenpeace International legal counsel Daniel Simons said: “The Russian Federation is now in clear breach of a binding order of an international tribunal. As President Vladimir Putin stated in his famous open letter to the American people on Syria, ‘The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.’

“In his State of the Nation speech yesterday in Moscow, he added: ‘We try not to lecture anyone but promote international law.’ It’s time for the authorities to act in that spirit and allow the Arctic 30 to go home to their families immediately.”

Greenpeace have said that they are hoping that an Amnesty decree for the Arctic 30 will be included in the next meeting of the Russian parliament (Duma).

Although there has not yet been any indication of of an Amnesty being considered, it could see the charges against the protestors dropped.