MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian court denied bail Monday to three more Greenpeace activists detained on piracy charges, including a vegan who, her lawyer claims, is “starving” in custody.
Sini Saarela from Finland, Swiss native Marco Weber and Polish citizen Tomasz Dziemianczuk are to remain in pretrial detention until November 24, Greenpeace said on Twitter.
The ruling of the Murmansk Region Court in northern Russia came despite a claim by Saarela’s lawyer, cited by Ekho Moskvy radio, that prison authorities are failing to cater to the vegan activist’s dietary needs.
Saarela has no thyroid gland, but no mention was made of whether that condition also necessitated any special dietary requirements.
Neither Greenpeace nor the Federal Prison Service had any immediate comment Monday on Saarela’s alleged dietary problems.
Russian authorities detained a Greenpeace icebreaker in mid-September and charged all 30 people on board with piracy after activists tried to scale an oil rig in the Russian Arctic in protest against offshore drilling in the region.
The alleged pirates, who represent 18 different countries, are currently in pretrial detention. All have appealed, asking to be released on bail, but no appeals have been granted so far. If found guilty, they face up to 15 years in prison.
