Greenpeace Trial Starts: Record Numbers Demand Unprecedented U.S. Administration Prosecution Be Dropped

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.