14 DAY TRIAL // The Russian parliament is getting ready to vote on a proposal to grant an official pardon to people accused or guilty of hooliganism. However, it appears that, in its current form, the amnesty would not in the least change the situation of Greenpeace's Arctic 30.
In a press release on the matter at hand, Greenpeace details that, should the amnesty proposal get enough votes, folks who have already been found guilty of hooliganism are to be forgiven.
Individuals who are to be trialed and receive their verdict within six months after the official pardon is issued would also be allowed to walk free.
The bad news is that the 30 Greenpeace activists and supporters who were arrested in Russia earlier this year following a protest against Gazprom fall in neither of these two categories.
Presently, Greenpeace is unable to say whether or not the people who pieced together the amnesty proposal have purposely wrote it in such a way that the Arctic 30 does not benefit from it.
However, the organization hopes that, before the decree is adopted, its text will be amended in favor of the Arctic 30.
“As it stands the amnesty text would not include the Arctic 30, but it very nearly does. The Duma [Russian parliament] would only have to make a relatively minor amendment to the text and include people charged with hooliganism whose trial has not yet been scheduled. Then the Arctic 30 could go home,” explains Daniel Simons, one of the lawyers working with Greenpeace International.
“The charges against them should of course be dropped, but if the Arctic 30 case can be brought to an end through the amnesty then that would be a welcome development for people who have already spent two months in jail for standing up for their beliefs,” he adds.
It is still unclear when the Duma will vote on this proposal, and Greenpeace can only hope that, by the time this happens, the amnesty's text will have been revised in a way that benefits the Arctic 30.