Police arrested four Greenpeace activists Sept. 2 who scaled an oil rig off Greenland’s west coast in an attempt to stall a oil drilling project by the Scottish company Cairn Energy.
The four are now under arrest in Aasiaat, Greenland’s Sermitsiaq newspaper reports.
The Guardian newspaper reported Greenlandic police arrested the four activists after stormy weather batter the “moutaineering-style platforms” Greenpeace had suspended from the underside of the Stella Don drilling rig.
Police and Greenpeace were arguing about the circumstances of the arrest. Greenlandic police dubbed it a rescue operation, while Greenpeace claimed police refused a request of the group to remove the activists before bad weather hit.
The activists are from the United States, Germany, Poland and Finland, the Guardian reported. They face charges under Greenlandic law for violating a 500-metre buffer zone around the drilling project, and under Danish law for alleged trespassing.
Mads Christensen Flarup of Greenpeace told Sermitsiaq that the group had achieved its goal by the stunt, saying that was to “create debate about the test wells in Greenland.”
“We also managed to stop Cairn Energy’s wells for two days so on that front, we had success,” Flarup said.
