Greenpeace Ship MV Sirius to Leave Stavanger Today
Klaus Merkle
## weitergeleitet durch Klaus Merkle
## PMs zum Inhalt bitte an den Ersteller, Brett-Mail ans Gruppenbrett
Greenpeace Ship MV Sirius to Leave Stavanger Today
Stavanger Court Decision Breaches Law of the Sea Convention
Stavanger/Amsterdam July 15, 1999. The Greenpeace vessel MV Sirius will
leave Stavanger today after posting bond to the Norwegian authorities.
Yesterday a Greenpeace lawyer appealed against the decision of a Stavanger
court to keep the Greenpeace vessel in port until the end of the whaling
season.
The next assignment for the boat and its crew is to stop radioactive
discharges into the North sea from reprocessing plants. Norwegian
authorities had to let the boat go because they were in contravention of
article 73 of the Law of the Sea Convention which states that vessels must
be released after the posting of a bond. The bond was set at 25,000 US
dollars.
"The Sirius will be of better use elsewhere than in the Stavanger harbor ,
says Frode Pleym, Norwegian whale campaigner. Because the ship is needed
for urgent campaign work, Greenpeace offices from around the world have
pitched in to come up with the bond money but we are confident that we
will get our money back when this goes to court . The next court hearing
will take place in Stavanger between 13-15 of October.
Greenpeace began its protest against this years Norwegian whaling in May
at a press conference on board the ship Rainbow Warrior in Oslo. Norwegian
whaling is in defiance of international agreements on the conservation of
whales.
During a peaceful protests at sea against the whaling vessel Villduen one
activist was seriously hurt. Activist Mark Hardingham was injured when a
Greenpeace inflatable was aggressively rammed into by a Norwegian Coast
Guard boat. He is still under medical care in a British hospital.
During the latest action, against the whaling vessel Kato, three rifle
shots were fired at activists in a Greenpeace inflatable. Luckily, no one
was injured but a bullet punctured the pontoon of the inflatable. The two
Norwegian Coast Guard ships on location watched passively as the
inflatable was hit by rifle fire. Police has now started to investigate
the shooting.
A member of the Norwegian parliament, Steinar Bastesen, who was onboard
the Kato during the shooting denied that human life was at risk. Bastesen,
who called the peaceful protest idiotic revolutionized every law of
physics associated with firing guns from a rocking boat on a moving
target. Asked about any risk, Bastesen stated: You can't hit the people if
you aim at the boat. (Aftenposten, 13.07.1999).
-ENDS-
For more information, please check our WebPages at
http//:www.greenpeace.no/english