Greenpeace activists convicted for stopping Arctic oil rig

On this page Copenhagen, 27th September 2011 - 20 Greenpeace activists who took peaceful direct action to protect the Arctic have been found guilty of trespassing and fined by a Greenland Court [1], after they scaled one of the world’s biggest oil rigs. In addition, 18 of the activists were also found guilty of breaking the security zone around the rig. In May 2011, Greenpeace volunteers from nine countries [2] boarded the 53,000 tonne Leiv Eiriksson rig in the freezing waters west of Greenland to demand that UK company Cairn Energy publish its plan for dealing with an oil spill in the Arctic. Though the activists were arrested, their actions sparked worldwide attention, and mounting pressure, with more than 100,000 people signing a petition calling for the document be released. The Greenland Government finally published the plan in August [3]. “We take full responsibility for our peaceful actions to protect the Arctic”, said one of the activists, Greenpeace Campaigner Ben Ayliffe. “Cairn Energy admits that a spill in this fragile and unique environment would be catastrophic; it is madness to allow such reckless companies to drill for more of the oil that is causing the region to melt in the first place. Our ...