https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenp...se_ship_caseOn 19 September 2013, the day after the Prirazlomnaya protest, the Russian authorities forcibly took control of the
Arctic Sunrise, which was boarded from a helicopter by fifteen
Federal Security Service officers in
balaclavas, armed with
guns and
knives.
[13] At the time of the boarding, the
Arctic Sunrise was in Russia's
Exclusive Economic Zone but not within the safety zone around the oil rig, and permission was not sought to board it from the
Arctic Sunrise's
flag state, the Netherlands.
[12] The captain was separated from the crew and brutally beaten, while other crew members and activists were held in the mess room.
[14] It has been alleged that crew members and activists were brutally beaten, punched, and kicked during the forced boarding.
[13]
The
Arctic Sunrise was towed to the port of
Murmansk. All of the 30 people on board were taken to a detention facility where they were brutally beaten and interrogated. In early October, the
Leninsky District Court in Murmansk issued a warrant to arrest all 30 people.
[15] 22 were put in custody for two months pending an investigation and the other eight were detained for three days pending a new hearing. They were under investigation for
piracy, which in Russia carries a maximum jail sentence of 15 years.
[6][16][17] On 23 October the charge of piracy was dropped and replaced by a charge for aggravated
hooliganism with a maximum sentence of seven years.
[18][19] After they were transferred to
Saint Petersburg on 12 November,
[15] the
Kalininsky and
Primorsky district courts released most of the people on bail,[[i]
citation needed] and the Murmansk
Regional Court rejected an appeal against the arrests on 21 November.
[20]
"
According to Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace in the United States at the time, the reaction of the Russian coast guard and courts had been the "stiffest response that Greenpeace has encountered from a government since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985.""