We just found out that our friends, 28 international activists and 2 freelance journalists, are being charged with piracy for standing up to Gazprom, a Russian oil giant. Its an incredibly serious charge and carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in a Russian jail. Please tweet these people with millions of followers to help #FreeTheArctic30.
UPDATE: #1 Stephen Fry is the first twitter millionaire to tweet his support!Click here to thank @stephenfry.
Russel Brand7,066,285 Followers
Emma Watson10,349,963 Followers
Ricky Gervais5,130,911 Followers
Its an outrage. These 30 activists were acting peacefully and with all of our futures at heart. Now its our turn to step up to help them. Its time to create a global outcry – the kind of coverage that will shame Arctic oil drillers Gazprom into getting the charges dropped. We know theyre behind the over-reaction of the Russian authorities.
We dont have the billions of $$$ that Gazprom make every year in profit – about $30,000 since you started reading this blog. But more valuable than all their billions is real people power.
RIght now, we need people. We need you. The only thing that will protect the Arctic, our global climate and our friends in jail, is a mass movement. For the past two weeks weve all been screaming our lungs out on social media and in the streets, telling the world to #FreeTheArctic30.
Now its time to up our game and ask where others stand too. We need their support.
Lets get 30 people with more than a million followers on Twitter to speak out to #FreeTheArctic30. One for every activist unjustly detained.
If we succeed, well be getting a global reach 30 times larger than the New York Times newspaper, or Moskovskij Komsomolets – Russias largest circulation daily.
Weve pulled together a list at the top of this blog of people we think should be supportive. Theyve supported similar campaigns in the past, theyre all good people and were asking them politely for their help.
Please use the links at the top of this post to generate your tweets, or write your own. Ask your favourite Twitter millionaire to tweet something like:
Please tweet your support to #FreeTheArctic30 in Russian jail. Activism is not piracy. http://greenpeace.org/freeouractivists
We are internationalists. We have no argument with the Russian people. The struggle were involved in transcends all the political borders todays politicians haggle over. Were in this to protect the Arctic – and our global climate – for everyone, everywhere, for generations to come.
Thats what the Arctic 30 were peacefully protesting for. While they sit in a Russian jail facing an uncertain future, it’s down to all of us to stand up for them.
