A court in Russia has charged 18 of the 30 activists from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, who were arrested last month, with piracy.
Fourteen of the activists were charged with piracy Wednesday, the Greenpeace press service told ITAR-TASS Thursday.
The other 16, including four who had already been charged similarly, were Thursday morning brought to the investigation department in the city of Murmansk in northern Russia from their places of detention.
The icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, under the flag of the Netherlands, Sep 18 sailed to the Russian energy giant Gazprom's drilling rig Prirazlomnaya and the Greenpeace activists on board the ship tried to board the drilling rig.
Border guards of the Federal Security Service in Murmansk region stopped the activists and towed the ship to the port of Murmansk.
A criminal case for piracy was filed.
The Leninsky district court in Murmansk had last week ordered the arrest of all those detained for two months at the request of prosecutors.
According to the Greenpeace press service, lawyers and interpreters have been provided to all those arrested.
The lawyers would also appeal the court ruling on behalf of all of them, it said.
According to an earlier Interfax news agency report, Greenpeace lawyer Mikhail Kreindlin said the piracy charges, which were punishable by up to 15 years in prison, were "completely unfounded, arbitrary and illegal".
"Our activists had no intention of seizing anyone's property. No crime was committed," the attorney added.
Gazprom claims the Greenpeace action endangered the health and lives of workers on the oil platform.
Greenpeace said that Gazprom's plans to begin crude production with that rig in the first quarter of 2014 would increase the risk of an oil spill in an area that contains three natural reserves protected by Russian law.
The piracy charges were filed even though Russian President Vladimir Putin said after the activists were detained that although they broke the law it was clear they were not pirates.
