Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30

by Ben Stewart

  On day three, the activists are visited by the chief prosecutor of the St Petersburg region, accompanied by a colonel and a phalanx of junior officers. The head of the regional human rights commission brings up the rear with the head of the prison. In each cell the chief prosecutor asks the same questions.

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Do you have any complaints?’

  ‘Are you satisfied with the conditions?’

  And Roman tells them, ‘Every time, every day, you ask us this. Well, my answer is I don’t have any fucking complaints about the conditions, it’s not a sanatorium, the only complaint I have is that I’m here at all, together with my twenty-nine friends.’

  Frank Hewetson’s diary

  14th November

  Went to sleep early last night + woke up really early thinking every noise outside was the porridge trolley. Feeling the blues today a fair bit. Guess it may be the ‘3 day’ transition period that I feel it takes to get grounded. However I feel down. The isolation is hard. Much more so than Murmansk as conversation over the walls at ‘gulyat’ is nigh on impossible. Been thinking about Mama a fair bit which always brings me very close to tears. I keep feeling she may die while I’m in prison, which would be unbearable. The cells are more comfortable but the complete lack of contact with the other GP crew is miserable.

  Day Four. In each cell the door opens and in come two generals, a lieutenant general and a major general, accompanied by the chief prosecutor, the head of the prison and a clutch of civilians. One by one this collection of sharp suits and enormous hats – this gang that resembles the reviewing party at a Red Square May Day parade – files in and out of the activists’ cells.

  One of the civilians appears to command the respect of the delegation. The man introduces himself to Dima. ‘My name is Fedotov. I am Vladimir Putin’s presidential adviser on human rights. My colleague here, the general, is head of the prison system for the Russian Federation, ministerial level. Do you have any complaints? Any questions? How are the conditions here? Oh, I see you have plenty of shelf space.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Dima replies. ‘Actually, I do have a complaint.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been jailed on trumped-up charges.’

  ‘Yes yes, very unfortunate. I understand your concern.’

  ‘The investigators tell me I’ll be here for many years.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Fedotov glances at the general, his bottom lip protrudes then he looks back at Dima. ‘And these investigators, did they tell you what the President says about your case?’

  ‘Actually, no, they didn’t.’

  ‘Do you think they’ve spoken to the President about your case?’

  ‘I suspect not.’

  ‘Well I have.’

  ‘And?’

  Fedotov looks around the cell. ‘You have a lot of things in here. The conditions here are good.’ Then he turns on his heels and walks out, a long trail of uniforms and suits following him, until they have all left and the cell door slams shut. Vasily looks at Dima, his mouth wide open. And he says, ‘Who next in our little home? Putin?’

  The legal team by now has a new lead lawyer, Andrey Suchkov, a criminal litigator experienced in running successful legal strategies that are inconvenient to powerful interests. His first move on taking over is to establish a line of communication with the lead investigator, and through that channel he soon learns devastating news.

  Mads Christensen comes on the video link to address the core team. He looks tired. He lifts his glasses and rubs his eyes.

  ‘Okay everybody, listen up. I’ve got some bad news. This new lawyer we’ve got, he’s found something out, and … look, it’s bad, okay.’

  The teams in Moscow, London and Amsterdam share concerned glances.

  ‘This lawyer’s been speaking to the investigators,’ says Christensen. ‘They’ve told him that when the current detention period expires, they’re going to apply to keep them in prison. Another three months. Nobody’s getting out.’

  Arms wrap around heads. Eyes well up.

  ‘Nooooo.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Shit shit shit.’

  The Kremlin is doubling down. The campaign has failed.

  Ben Ayliffe heads up a team that has organised hundreds of protests in dozens of cities. He’s run an operation that has energised people across the globe and signed up nearly two million people to the campaign. But now he’s slumped in his chair in the Room of Doom, shaking his head. ‘What are we actually doing here?’ he mumbles. ‘Was all this for nothing?’

  For families and campaigners around the world the news hits like a hammer. The Arctic 30 are nine days out from the end of the current two-month detention period, the ruling of the ITLOS court is due around the same time, the campaign is a global phenomenon – world leaders, celebrities, newspapers and millions of people are lining up to demand freedom for the thirty. But now Putin has shrugged his shoulders and slammed the door.

  In the Russian office the staff have been spied on, lied to, lied about and abused. They have been on the verge of being raided, shut down and arrested. Many of them have come under pressure from their families to quit the campaign, to resign from the organisation. They’re branded enemies of Putin now, with all that entails for themselves and their futures. But still they came, every morning, to battle the state media and the FSB and those claims that the Arctic 30 are agents of foreign intelligence agencies determined to undermine Russian economic development. And now they’re back where they started. No, worse, the position of the Kremlin has hardened. It feels like it’s all been a waste. All of it.

  Mads Christensen is back on the video link, speaking to his core team. The mood is dark. He has to tell them something to convince them that the fight is not over, that there are still things they can do. ‘We need to increase the strain on the investigators,’ he says. ‘Something to make them totally fed up with this case. Something that makes them wish we’d just go away. This is a war of attrition and we’re more determined. And now we’ve got nothing left to lose.’

  He says the legal team has been waiting for the right moment to apply for bail and land the investigators with a mountain of paperwork and a logistical nightmare, and since the charges were re-qualified there’s been a legal justification for doing it. Bail was refused back in Murmansk when they were accused of piracy, but that was two months ago, and now they’re charged with a less serious crime.

  ‘Bail is such a rare thing in Russia,’ Christensen tells his team. ‘It almost never happens. I want to caution you all, this is a long shot. But if we do it we’ll cause the Russians a real headache. We’ll make them bring everyone to court and defend the arrest and the charges all over again. We need to grind them down. We’ll have to offer a bond and it’ll need to be a high figure, so the courts can’t say we’re not serious. But I think we should do it. We’re going to apply for bail.’

  There is a calendar in the Room of Doom that takes up an entire wall. Key upcoming moments are marked in red pen, and around the third week of November there is a riot of scarlet ink. The two-month detention period – handed down in Murmansk – expires on the twenty-fourth. On the twenty-second the ITLOS international court is set to rule on the Dutch application to have the crew released. In the days before that, the FSB will be applying for that three-month extension of detention. And now the Greenpeace lawyers will be piggybacking onto those hearings to apply for bail. The first case will be heard on 18 November.

  Mads Christensen decides to offer two million roubles – fifty thousand euros – for every prisoner. But the figure is academic. Hardly anybody thinks the crew will actually get bail.

  The news spreads through the SIZOs. The Investigative Committee is keeping them in jail. Sini is told by the Finnish consul, then she goes back to her cell, lies on her bunk and cries all day, cries until she’s so tired she drifts off to sleep with wet and red-raw eyes. She could have done three more months in Murmans
k. She could have survived that, with the tapping on the pipe and the shouts over the wall at gulyat. But here in St Petersburg, where she has almost no contact with her friends, she’s not so sure she’ll make it.

  Camila hears the news from her lawyer, but by now she feels strong. She feels like she’ll get through this, she knows she’ll survive. It means she’s going to spend Christmas here, and she’s going to spend the Argentine summer here. But she accepts that. Okay, shit, so it’s going to be three months more, she thinks. Whatever.

  Frank is taken to the meeting room at Kresty, where two officials from the British consulate are waiting for him. They have books, copies of British newspapers and his favourite magazine, Private Eye. As Frank leafs through the pages of one of the books – it’s about English football – one of the consuls shifts in his seat and says awkwardly, ‘So they’ve applied to extend your detention. Another three months.’

  Frank looks up. ‘What do you mean three months?’

  ‘You’re not getting out anytime soon. I’m sorry.’

  Frank crumples, his shoulders slump, his chin drops and he stares at the ground between his boots. His mind races for a moment, it’s performing calculations, working out all the birthdays that are coming up, the ones he’s going to miss. His son’s fourteenth, his daughter’s seventeenth, his partner’s fiftieth, his mother’s ninetieth.

  He wraps his arms around his head and bites his lip. He fucked up, he knows that now. It was never heroism. Bravado, maybe, but not heroism. He thought he was inside for doing the right thing, but now he feels reckless. Irresponsible. Selfish. All those missed birthdays.

  The consul asks him something but he can’t speak. He can’t even see the man. All he can see are the faces of his kids.

  The consul leans forward.

  ‘Frank,’ he says. ‘You have to listen to me.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said, don’t you think it’s time for the apology?’

  Frank blinks. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘We need to think about an apology.’

  ‘Apology?’

  ‘It’s time.’

  ‘Apologise to who?’

  ‘Come on, Frank. You know.’

  ‘Apologise to the FSB? To Putin?’ A spark of indignation fires up somewhere near the back of his skull. ‘Apologise to Putin? You have to be kidding me.’ He sits up straight. ‘What we did was right. It was fundamentally right.’ He bites his lip and shakes his head. ‘No way. I’ll do the time. I’ve got nothing to say sorry for. Nothing.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Frank Hewetson’s diary

  18th November

  Just had gulyat and brief shout with Denis. He is off to court this morning to receive notification in court of 3 month extension. What appals me is that he is a Russian citizen, living in Moscow. Not exactly a flight risk!

  A letter just got delivered for Anton. It was from his lawyer and did not look like good news. He was quiet a long while. After putting it down he washed his face and towelled himself dry. I’m sure he cried. My god I can only feel lucky not being him. He’s going to the ZONA [labour camp] and the sentence is likely to be 10 years. He’s in his bunk above me, very quiet.

  Pete Willcox’s diary

  18th November

  Got up this morning and saw a beautiful full moon over the church. My cell in Murmansk faced north, so I never saw either the sun or the moon. I have now decided to take the heavenly observations of the last two days as a good sign. Now, I have not always read the signs correctly. Note the rainbows in New Zealand in 1985.

  But I am taking this as a good sign. Now we will see what happens.

  ‘Russell? Colin Russell?’

  ‘That’s me, fella.’

  ‘You come now.’

  Colin – the 59-year-old Australian radio operator – stands up in a holding cell on the ground floor of St Petersburg’s Kalininsky District Court, where his lawyers are about to argue for his release on bail, and the Russian state will petition for his continued detention on a charge of hooliganism. It is the morning of Monday 18 November and seven of the crew have been brought to two courthouses in white avtozaks with blue stripes down the bonnet and flashing blue lights on the roof.

  Colin puts his hands behind his back and turns around so the guard can cuff him. Then he steps out of the cell and he’s led away by three young officers in starched blue uniforms and fur hats. As they round a corner and approach the courtroom, a crowd of journalists raises cameras and microphones, and the air is filled with clicking and questions and shouts from supporters.

  In the Arctic 30 campaign hubs in Moscow, Copenhagen, London and Amsterdam, and on laptops around the world, nervous colleagues, friends and family are watching the live video link broadcasting from the courthouse.

  Two days ago there were demonstrations in 263 cities in forty-three countries around the world, calling for the release of the crew. In India there were thirty hours of protests across thirty cities. In Germany, huge lantern-lit marches to Russian consulates took place in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Bonn and Leipzig. More than thirty thousand Russians have submitted official complaints to the authorities against the jailing of the Arctic 30, putting themselves at risk of retribution.

  Colin smiles. He’s still wearing the battered blue sweatshirt he had on when the ship was seized nine weeks ago. His grey hair is combed back, he’s wearing a thick beard and steel-rimmed glasses that rest on the end of his nose.

  ‘It’s all good,’ he says to the supporters, who are jostling with journalists in the hallway. ‘All good. Hello, everybody.’

  The guards direct him through a door and a moment later he’s being uncuffed and locked in a cage in the courtroom. A female judge in a black robe is sitting in a huge leather high-backed throne behind a table on a raised platform, the Russian flag draped from a pole to her side. She is young, late thirties maybe, with tied-back dyed blonde hair and black thick-framed spectacles. In the corner a bank of TV cameras is facing the cage, maybe twenty-five journalists. There’s a row of spider plants along the wall below a broad window. A young female guard all in black, long hair under a baseball cap, stands in the very middle of the courtroom, between the media and the prisoner.

  The campaign hubs have people stationed at court using Skype to keep them updated on the multiple simultaneous hearings.

  Jan Beránek: UPDATE: Colin just arrived at the courtroom.

  Jan Beránek: UPDATE Colin’s hearing: Investigator argues that reasons of detention are still active, so IC asks for detention. ‘Colin could disturb the investigation and hide evidences.’ He asks for a detention until 24 February.

  Jan Beránek: UPDATE Colin’s hearing: Prosecutor agrees with investigation. Based on Leninsky court decision, the detention is legal. Prosecutor says Colin could escape.

  The prosecutor claims there was a violent attack on the oil platform and that Colin should be held for at least three more months while the investigation continues. He says Colin needs to remain in jail because he could flee Russia and escape justice.

  Jan Beránek: QUOTE from Colin’s hearing:

  Lawyer: ‘Will you escape the court?’

  Colin: ‘I’m innocent, I have nothing to run from.’

  The judge looks up. She folds the file closed and announces a recess while she considers her judgement, then she leaves the courtroom. She retires to her chambers, where normally in the course of Russian justice – such as it is – a judge might check their emails or perhaps call Moscow to find out what the ruling in their hearing should be. Thirty minutes later she’s back.

  Jan Beránek: IMP UPDATE Colin’s hearing: The judge is now reading the verdict. With very weak voice.

  Jan Beránek: Get ready to contact Colin’s relatives.

  She’s mumbling through the words in barely audible Russian. Thousands of miles away, on every continent bar Antarctica, families and campaigners are staring at their screens. It’s coming. Any moment now.

  Jan Beránek:
IMP UPDATE COLIN: Verdict = DETENTION UNTIL 24 FEB

  Jan Beránek: No bail. Detention.

  Colin shrugs and shakes his head as hearts sink in cities across the world. He gets to his feet and makes a V sign for the cameras, which by now are clustered around the cage. And he says, ‘Thank you to the world for coming to our cause. I want to thank you. Everybody around the world, thank you, thank you. You’re all beautiful people.’ His face breaks into a grin. ‘I love you all. I love everybody. I am not a criminal.’

  The fur hats cuff Colin’s wrists and lead him out, and as he’s taken down the corridor, with supporters clapping as he passes, he says, ‘Thank you, everybody. You’re all good. All good.’

  At SIZO-5 Sini is in a meeting room waiting for a guard to take her back to her cell. There’s a little window in the door and she can see Alex in her purple ski jacket going into a meeting room with her own lawyer. Sini waves at her and Alex waves back. Then Sini sees that Alex is crying. Alex’s lawyer comes to the window and shows Sini three fingers and mouths the words, ‘Three months. Colin. Three months.’

  Alex wipes her eyes. Sini is making a shape with her hands. Alex squints to see better. Sini has made a heart with her fingers and she’s mouthing the words, ‘I love you.’ Sini quickly scribbles a note and gives it to the translator, who walks through to the other room and passes it to Alex. It says, It will be okay. Be strong. I love you.

  Dima is watching the television news. He stares at the screen, at pictures of Colin. He shakes his head as the reporter explains the Greenpeace prisoners are staying in jail, then he sits down and writes a letter to his son Lev on the Pacific island of Vanuatu.

  Dima has put off this moment for as long as he could, but now he knows it’s at least three more months, and possibly years in jail. He knows Lev will take the letter well, he’s a good kid, he has some of his grandfather inside him, and a lot of his great-grandfather and namesake, the famous dissident Lev Kopelev.

  As he holds the pen above a sheet of paper, Dima’s mind slips back many years to when Lev was just a kid, maybe thirteen. The family was living in Sweden and one night there was a power outage. Lev couldn’t play computer games so he disappeared outside with his friends. At 2 a.m. he still hadn’t returned. Dima was frantic. Then at 3 a.m. bang bang bang on the door. Two burly policemen stood there with skimpy little Lev between them. Anitta broke into tears, Dima asked what was going on. The cops said they found him on the roof of his school, they said Lev had talked back to them, some wiseguy stuff. Dima asked Lev, ‘Did you? Did you speak back to the officers?’ And Lev said, ‘Well, I just said to them that as long as police violence is portrayed as justice then the justice of the proletariat is going to look like violence.’