Piracy is punishable by five to 15 years in jail under Russian law.
The six were among 30 people who have been held since September 18 after activists from the Arctic Sunrise tried to board a Russian oil platform to protest at plans to develop off-shore oil fields in the Arctic. They were denied bail and detained for at least two months at a court hearing last week.
A second journalist on board the vessel, former Reuters photographer Denis Sinyakov, has also been detained.
The protest was a repeat of an action against Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya platform on the Pechora sea last summer, when several activists tied themselves to the side of the rig until forced to leave by high-pressure hoses. No arrests were made, however, and the vessel was allowed to leave the area without further incident.
But video footage released by the group showed this year's action quickly descend into an ill-tempered confrontation that saw Russian coastguards fire warning shots from ship's guns and side arms before boarding the Greenpeace vessel and confining its crew below decks.
Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International's executive director, who took part in last year's action, said yesterday the crisis had become the "the most serious threat to Greenpeace's peaceful environmental activism since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior."
via Science - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHsqdUNuPVZ1l1_oBZ_nJvxjOXUEA&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10350966/British-journalist-charged-with-piracy-after-Greenpeace-protest-in-Russia.html
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