ARGENTINA: Thirty artists paint a massive mural outside the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires to demand release of 30 Greenpeace activists detained during an Arctic drilling protest

Record ID: 325444

  • Title: ARGENTINA: Thirty artists paint a massive mural outside the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires to demand release of 30 Greenpeace activists detained during an Arctic drilling protest
  • Date: 6th November 2013
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (NOVEMBER 06, 2013) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY A RUSSIAN FLAG A SIGN FOR THE RUSSIAN FLAG VARIOUS OF GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS AND ARTISTS PAINTING A MURAL IN FRONT OF THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY DEMANDING THE RELEASE OF ENVIRONMENTALISTS DETAINED IN RUSSIA A SECURITY CAMERA AT THE EMBASSY VARIOUS OF THE ACTIVISTS AND ARTISTS PAINTING (SOUNDBITE
  • Embargoed: 21st November 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Nature / Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVA5FUQJ1X8ENXC8QONSH3IYJO1N
  • Story Text: A group of activists and artists gathered outside the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires on Wednesday (November 6) to paint a mural to demand Russia release 30 people detained during a Greenpeace protest against oil drilling in the Arctic.
    The demonstration was organized by Greenpeace and Monoblock, a group that publishes young Argentine artists and illustrators.
    Thirty artists took place in the collaboration.
    The 30 activists were detained in September when they tried to climb onto Russia's first offshore Arctic oil rig.
    Russia accuses the activists and their ship, the Dutch-registered Arctic Sunrise, of posing a security threat.
    Prosecutors charged the 30 with piracy but then reduced the charge to hooliganism, which carries a maximum jail term of seven years.
    Mauro Fernandez of Greenpeace Argentina said the activists were expressing themselves in the same way the artists were expressing themselves with their work.

    "This started with the artists. With a message that encompasses us all, which is the freedom of the 30 (activists). And each one in their own style, their way of integrating, being as that it is a mural being made collectively with the a focus on the situation over the role our activists, who are people just like anyone else. But they've done something extraordinary to stop the threat of something extraordinary -- the oil companies in that region. This will also be in the focus each of the artists have. But I reiterate, they are expressing themselves freely for the freedom of these 30 people who were also expressing themselves freely to denounce a serious environmental crime," Fernandez said.
    President Vladimir Putin has said the activists are not pirates but has faced growing criticism in the West over what is seen as Russia's heavy-handed treatment of the case.
    The Netherlands asked an international court on Wednesday to order Russia to release them.
    Greenpeace is a global environmentalist group based in Amsterdam.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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