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The online Ria Novosti news service has a report on the 30 activists who Russian officials have locked up for allegedly trespassing and attempting to storm onto a platform facility in the Arctic last month.

According to the latest report from Ria Novosti, the Russians are now “hinting at drug charges against the Greenpeace activists” and that they are considering pressing charges that could lead to life sentences for some of them. The Russians aren’t fooling around and they are playing major league hardball. Obviously some people out in the ‘open and tolerant’ west are having a hard time understanding the situation.

Hat tip: John from Quebec.

Perhaps the threats of life in prison are in response to the combative tones coming from Greenpeace bosses lately. For example Greenpeace’s international executive director, Kumi Naidoo, declared that the world needs people who are “prepared to go to prison, put their lives on the line if necessary, in the struggle for climate justice and addressing the reality of runaway catastrophic climate change.”

Well, if activists are willing to put their lives on the line for Greenpeace causes and are incapable of reasonable dialogue, then perhaps it is indeed best to keep them locked up.

Strangely, Greenpeace seems to be convinced that it can use protests to “out-bully” Russia. Good luck with that.

According to Ria Novosti, investigators on Wednesday said that substances presumed to be poppy straw and morphine “have been found on board a Greenpeace ship seized last month“. This, Ria Novosti writes, raises “the threat of new charges against a group of activists and journalists awaiting trial on suspicion of piracy.”

Moreover, “investigators were trying to determine which of the detainees had ‘intentionally rammed’ border guards’ boats – an act that could constitute an assault on the ‘life and health’ of officials. Under Russian law, the punishment for this crime could range from 12 years to life in prison.”

Ramming into ships? Gee, like this is something Greenpeace would never ever do. Actually, the Russians caught Greenpeace red-handed doing just that. Reader Observer found the following video of a Greenpeace boat ramming the smaller of the Russian coast guard boats:

Moreover all the shows of moral indignation by European officials, haughtily implying that Russia is a sort of a despotic state, likely made things worse.

My advice to Greenpeace and Greenpeace-huggers is that they should tone down their belligerent and condescending rhetoric quite a few levels, and begin to consider that perhaps the activists were acting illegally after all. Humility sometimes is not a bad thing. It can be learned – the easy way, or the hard way.

Yes, we know that admitting you’ve erred is something that is totally foreign to the infallible Greenpeace – but now it’s something they need to learn how to do very quickly.

Life in prison – that sure would send a clear message to those with comprehension disabilities.

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UPDATE: Here’s a letter Naidoo has sent to Putin, asking if he could be meet face-to-face on the world stage with Putin. Talk about being publicity-hungry. From the letter, he definitely has toned it down. But it doesn’t look like he’s aware of the boat ramming escapade his “peaceful” activists have indulged in – see video below.