Dutch police on Thursday arrested around 30 Greenpeace activists, including the captain of the lobby group’s flagship Rainbow Warrior, as they tried to stop a Russian tanker delivering Arctic oil from docking.
“The captain has been arrested and the ship is being taken elsewhere else,” Rotterdam police spokesman Roland Eckers told AFP of the Rainbow Warrior.“Several activists climbed a fence to prevent the ship docking and several others were in small boats also trying to impede the tanker and several were arrested, around 30 activists,” Eckers said.The Rainbow Warrior was captained by Peter Willcox, who was among campaigners detained by Russian authorities last year after staging a high-profile protest against drilling in the environmentally fragile Arctic.
No one else aboard the Rainbow Warrior was arrested, while the Mikhail Ulyanov tanker, bringing a first delivery of offshore Arctic oil to Rotterdam, was now safely moored, police said.Activist Willem Wiskerke tweeted from aboard the vessel that he was in the ship’s mess with police. Police spokesman Eckers said the protest was over after police removed “a couple of people who had fastened themselves to a sort of oil pipe” on the quay.
“We detached them, it went peacefully, they’re on shore,” Eckers said. Greenpeace activists had earlier painted “No Arctic Oil” in large letters on the tanker’s hull, while others in inflatable boats tried to prevent the ship docking.