The Dutch government says it will take Russia to international court over its seizure of a Greenpeace vessel used to stage a protest at an offshore Arctic oil platform. Russian prosecutors last week filed piracy charges against 30 people from 18 nations aboard the ship. On 19 September, Russian security forces seized the Arctic Sunrise near a Gazprom rig in the Pechora Sea northwest of Russia. Greenpeace insists that the protest was peaceful and intended to raise awareness of the environmental risks of Arctic drilling. "Our activists have been charged with a crime that did not happen," said Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo in a statement. On 4 October, Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans told reporters that his government will file an arbitration suit at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to challenge the legality of the seizure of the ship, which sails under the Dutch flag.
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