More than 68,611 people have sent e-mail messages and faxes to
U.S President George Bush and his Attorney
General, John Ashcroft, demanding an end to attempts to
criminalise the
entire Greenpeace organisation in the USA.
The first day of the trial, which is an unprecedented
prosecution of any advocacy group for a peaceful protest by its
supporters, begins today in Miami, Florida.
Greenpeace is being prosecuted under an obscure 1872 law against
"sailormongering" for a peaceful protest in 2002 against a cargo
ship
carrying illegal mahogany wood from the Brazilian Amazon.(1)
As well as the 68,611 on-line protests, the highest number ever
generated
for a Greenpeace international campaign, American civil rights
leaders,
unions, legal experts and newspaper editorials have condemned
the
prosecution, warning that it will have serious consequences for
the
rights to peaceful protest and freedom of speech.
The bizarre law, under which Greenpeace has been charged, was
originally
designed to discourage owners of inns and brothels from boarding
ships,
as they are about to enter port, in order to lure the sailors
into their establishments. It has only been used twice in its'
history. The
prosecution appears to be another example of attempts to silence
critics
of the current Bush administration.
Supporters of Greenpeace in this
case include former U.S Vice President
Al Gore, the National Association for the Advancement of
Coloured
People, the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the
American Way,
the Sierra Club, U.S Senator Patrick Leahy and the Natural
Resources
Defense Council.