01x05 - Episode 5

[bunniefuu]

This program me contains

some strong language

DOG BARKS

This is the place you don't want

to end up, definitely.

I've been inside of many prisons

and I know how the pre-trial

detention centre is in Murmansk.

It is designed to break you.

You need to survive,

but it makes something

with you for the whole life.

It was an incredibly daring mission.

It needed to be done.

But the plan, I think

you could say, went to sh*t.

g*nf*re

NEWS REPORT: High drama

on the high seas tonight.

Russian forces have seized

control of a Greenpeace ship.

It felt like being in the middle

of a James Bond film.

15 years stuck in a Russian prison.

How did I get here?

IN RUSSIAN:

Dealing with Putin, this was

a different game altogether.

There's, like, a ticking

time b*mb here.

How the hell are we

going to get them out?

they worry about co-workers

who are sitting in a Russian jail

in a port by the Arctic Sea.

Our 30 activists and friends,

they were facing really

serious charges.

And, yeah, you worry.

You worry about how people

are going to react.

Most of these people know

Frank Hewetson well.

To see him with the prospect

of being in jail

for 15 years is really

heart-breaking.

Frank, he was a good friend of mine.

I've been in loads of scrapes

with Frank.

I thought, you know,

"He's going to be

"He's going to be strong in there."

So, when I was told that Frank might

even have had a heart attack,

that was a real bolt from the blue.

There was a period of us

being really scared.

You know, we didn't know what

had happened.

I get taken to

the General Murmansk Hospital

and I'm put into a wheelchair

and we're bustling through

the corridors

but I'm starting to come

back into myself a little bit.

You know, this is not a prison cell,

I'm not looking at big steel bars.

Tests showed that my heart was fine.

Eventually, I get to

the chief psychiatric doctor

of the whole hospital,

and he can speak English.

And I said, "Look, man, I'm having

real trouble keeping it together."

In the end, turns out I had

a very close shave

with having a total

nervous breakdown.

There were lots of rumours.

We weren't really sure

what had happened to him.

But at some point that afternoon

we heard, "He's OK.

"He's heading back to Sizo-1

OK, deep breath.

But it still left this indelible

mark on the campaign.

You know, things might have stepped

up a tempo from us, even then.

We really had to get them

out of there.

We knew that we had to bring some

pressure to bear on the Russians.

We have to have people

in the Kremlin thinking,

"ls this worth it to us,

keeping them in jail?"

The aim was to keep them

in the news.

So, we're sitting

in the Room of Doom.

At one point, somebody said,

"There is a route

"by which we could actually smuggle

letters out from the Arctic 30."

We could really use that.

So, we got messages through this

secret route to the Arctic 30.

Ancl people took big risks,

and letters started coming out.

"When it is snowing,

I think about the Arctic,

"and it gives me strength.

" | t gives this all meaning."

It really strengthened the certainty

thatl had

in that we had been doing

the right thing.

"Being in prison is like

slowly dying."

"You literally wish your life away

and mark off the days."

It was just such an amazing way

to keep them in the news.

Ancl then we get this letter from

Phil that's different.

The letter's something like,

"When Thomas the Tank Engine's

friend Harold dropped in for tea

"the other clay, I managed to get

some pictures of it.

"They would be really good

and very exciting."

Ancl then, like, "SD."

Like, this bat sh*t crazy stuff.

It's like, "OK, I think Phil's

trying to tell us something here."

So, it's like,

" | s it Harold the helicopter?"

Ancl then, like, SD - it was like,

micro SD,

you know, which is, like,

a kind of small camera card.

Oh, my God.

I think that Phil filmed

the boarding,

and he's still got the SD card.

Ancl from our point of view,

this was a big deal.

So, our suspicion was that

the boarding

was actually pretty brutal,

where we can tell

who the pirates are

and who the peaceful protestors are,

and Phil's got footage.

We need to find a way

to get this out.

DOG BARKING

I'd hidden the SD card with

the footage in my shoe.

I've inadvertently smuggled

the footage into a prison.

This is the only copy

of that footage.

I've been searched several times,

and they haven't managed

to find the footage.

It's still in my shoe.

Sitting in that detention cell,

I knew that the date was coming up

for a big court case.

The ITLOS trial - the International

Tribunal of the Law of the Sea.

A United Nations tribunal

where they would decide

whether Russia had acted unlawfully.

And if they could see them boarding

the ship with armed soldiers,

it could hold the key to us

getting out.

An international tribunal ruling

that Russia shouldn't have seized

the Sunrise would be a big enough

deal to apply real pressure

on Russia to release them.

And so that's why we were so keen

to get hold of this little

micro SD card.

But I'll tell you who was really

excited about that footage

was our legal team.

So, Daniel Simons, he was in charge

of the legal team,

and he's sent to Murmansk very early

on to marshal a legal response.

The boarding was ill*gal.

The Arctic Sunrise is a Dutch ship.

Under international law,

the Dutch government has the right

for this ship to sail

without interference

in international waters.

I proposed to the Dutch government

that the only way to secure

the freedom of the ship

and the crew would be to go before

the International Tribunal

for the Law of the Sea to seek

a court order to that effect.

Ancl obviously the footage really

had the potential to influence

the outcome of the case.

I needed to get the footage out

before the ITLOS tribunal,

but how the hell am I going

to get this out?

NEWS REPORT: The Greenpeace ship

Arctic Sunrise

has now been towed to a fjord

outside the port of Murmansk

in northern Russia.

The immediate fate of

the BO-strong crew

now depends on Russian prosecutors.

So, during this period, we had,

in fact,

two ongoing parallel

legal proceedings.

In addition to the International

Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,

we had the criminal investigation

that was ongoing into piracy

for the Russian courts against

the Arctic 30.

NEWS REPORT: Each could be facing

up to 15 years in prison.

Under Russian law, if you've been

sent into pre-trial detention,

you have the right to appeal

against that decision,

so we lodge an appeal with

the Murmansk regional court.

Greenpeace activists are clearly

not pirates, as President Putin

We understood from the start that if

a decision was taken in the Kremlin

to release the 30, it would be

expressed through the courts.

The appeal hearing was our very

best shot

at getting the 30 out

before the end of the initial

two-month detention period.

But when I was told that each person

needed to have their own lawyer

my heart sank.

Murmansk is a small town.

The population is, I think,

less than 300,000,

and there's a limit to how many

good criminal defence lawyers

you can find there.

I remember the first time

I met my lawyer.

This guy came in with

a golden necklace,

unbuttoned shirt,

with this over-the-top Armani belt.

And then he started talking to me

like he knew me for years.

He was like, "Faiza, Faiza, listen,

"I offered them a lot of money

to get you out.

"I even offered them my car -

and I have an expensive car -

"but they still don't want to

release you."

And I was like, "Who are you,

and are you actually my lawyer?"

I think there was an expectation

that we should hire

the very best criminal defence

lawyers in Russia.

But what you don't want in that

situation is a lot of prima Donnas

who are not willing to act

as a team.

Overall, I was really impressed.

The quality of the lawyers in Russia

was excellent.

IN RUSSIAN:

However, most of the lawyers

didn't speak any English,

and, of course, we set about

trying to find interpreters.

We were very fortunate

with people who we found.

Very brave Russian people.

I first heard about the Greenpeace

arrest in the news.

I thought, like, "Wow, this is like,

a really huge international scandal,

"and it's happening in my hometown."

So, Tanya, I suppose just to start

with, just tell us who you are

and, you know, what your connection

is with Greenpeace.

OK. I'm an activist from Murmansk.

When I heard about the arrest

of Arctic Sunrise,

I asked them what I can do,

and they said,

"Can you be a translator

between lawyers and prisoners?"

I was ready to do anything to

help Greenpeace,

because Putin pissed me off

already very a lot.

TANYA LAUGHS

2012, I was involved in the protests

against the falsified elections.

I know many people were imprisoned

for their political activities.

Since that time, that's my life,

to be active against injustice.

Meeting Tanya for the first time,

it was amazing.

In a Russian jail, I couldn't

understand a bloody thing.

Most of the time, you know,

Tanya would just be translating

what was being said legally.

But we just chatted about stuff

that's not prison-related, as well.

I find out Tanya's nonbinary,

they're in a punk band.

I started to really get a feel for

the fact that Tanya was pretty cool.

And I start to think about

the SD card.

We were getting letters smuggled

in and out of the prison

but the SD card is so much

more important.

If they discovered it,

we didn't have another copy.

The only way that I can get it out,

I think,

is either the lawyer

or the translator.

And I'm not 100% sure

about the lawyer.

He might be an FSB agent.

But can I trust Tanya?

I don't know what an undercover

FSB agent looks like.

How deep undercover do they go?

I don't know, I've never

met one before.

But I feel reasonably convinced

that they don't look like that.

It looks like the Russian

authorities are at the moment

moving in the direction that we saw

with the p*ssy Riot demonstration,

where they clamped down very hard

on protest,

Though I suppose it's still possible

that the Russians

could step back from the brink

in the face of overwhelming bad

publicity that may flow

from putting Greenpeace

activists on trial.

We knew we had to keep them

in the public eye

before these bail hearings

start happening.

But this is the tricky thing, right,

cos if you're Greenpeace,

you need a bad guy to attack.

You need to create confrontation.

But the advice was,

"We are not at w*r with Putin."

and if it's not going to be Putin,

who's it going to be?

Ancl the obvious thing was Gazprom,

which was the company that owned

the Russian oil rig.

They sponsor the UEFA Champions

League, they're just everywhere.

Gazprom is our proxy for Putin.

When we attack Gazprom,

we're attacking Putin,

but we give Putin this wide

turning circle.

Right, we're going to go after

Gazprom everywhere where they exist.

Protests outside art galleries,

shutting down petrol stations,

protests outside

international headquarters.

This was an integral part

of keeping them in the news.

Then, soon after, there's

a UEFA Champions League tie.

This game, it's on TV

all over the place.

just before kick-off, it was like,

"Go, go, go."

This huge banner floated down,

it stops the game.

It felt to us like we had made

a significant intervention.

NEWS REPORT: Greenpeace activists

interrupted a football game

in Switzerland. They descended from

the stadium roof,

unveiling banners with slogans

against Gazprom,

a sponsor of the game.

The banners called for

the 30 activists held in Russia

to be released.

IN RUSSIAN:

I needed to get the footage

out before the ITLOS tribunal.

It was a vital piece of evidence.

I knew Tanya was my last chance.

I was sitting with Phil

and he informed me that he has

some SD card with something on it,

and asked if I can get it out.

First of all, I was thinking,

"Where the f*ck you can hide

the SD card in prison?"

TANYA LAUGHS

Phil asked me if it's OK with me.

I think it's difficult to get out.

You have security check and so on.

This could be quite a trouble.

I'm aware of the risk to Tanya,

but what other options do we have?

It's a big risk

if I would be caught.

I really need to think

about what to do.

If it was found out that

I have the SD card,

probably I will be arrested.

Ancl there would, of course,

be a high chance of t*rture.

Yeah, it's

Erm

It's a lot.

But I thought, "Finally I have

a moment

"to do something really brave."

I was ready to do anything which can

bring more attention to this case.

So, the next time the lawyer comes,

in comes Tanya.

Tanya's on board.

It was It was electric.

But how to smuggle it out?

Whenever we met, there was

always a prison guard

immediately outside the door.

So there's no way I can

just hand it over.

And I went back to my cell to

twiddle my thumbs.

And it just suddenly dawned on me.

The way to do it was to put

it in a matchbox.

I think it was quite a smart

solution to choose the matchbox,

because inside prison nearly

everybody's smoking.

So, I made a little false bottom,

put the SD card in there,

and I closed it all up.

It was indiscernible

from a normal matchbox.

This was like extreme

Blue Peter skills.

Everything was ready to go the next

time Tanya comes in.

DOG BARKING

I remember there was a lot

resting on that appeal hearing.

Stuck in a cell on your own,

you catch on to any little

bit of hope you can to survive.

My lawyer indicated

that there's the chance

that we might be released.

I kind of clung on to that.

Before the appeal,

we were hearing two stories.

That it's all going to be

over soon,

Putin's made his point,

they're going to get released,

sit tight.

But we were also getting

credible intelligence saying,

"No, Putin has decided to send

a message with this

"..and it's possible that they're

going to go down for years."

My lawyer, in the beginning

I didn't trust him.

But in the end, every time my lawyer

would pay me a visit

that would be the moment

I would feel human again.

Because I had somebody to talk to.

He ended up being my best friend.

And I remember, I said to him,

"just tell me the truth

"..are they going to let us out

or no?"

He said to me, "Listen, Faiza,

it has become a showcase.

"They can open the door,

tell you you're free to go,

"or prolong the detention period.

"Anything can happen."

CAMERAS CLICK

On the morning of the appeal,

I had a mixed feeling of foreboding

and a bit of hope.

Maybe this was a clay when

the solution was going to come.

There was a lot of media presence.

It really gave the feeling

that the Russian authorities

would feel that the eyes

of the world were on them.

TH EY SPEAK RUSSIAN

NEWS REPORT: The principal argument

of the activists

is that, first of all,

they can't be pirates,

because they weren't

attacking a ship.

I've been in jail for 22 days

for a crime I didn't commit.

They're also arguing that they

were detained illegally

in international waters.

They argue that the charges

against them are incorrect.

We do not deserve to be

treated like this.

The lawyers delivered

a really strong argument,

and then the judge retired

to deliberate.

It was a nervous wait.

TANYA: I was in the court,

and the judge went out.

it just was the super clear

proof of this, like

It's called in Russian

telephone justice.

Like, somebody important called to

the judge, told them the decision.

IN RUSSIAN:

When the first judge returned

and announced that the appeal had

been rejected,

my heart sank, cos I knew that

the template had been set

for all 30 members of the group.

JUDGE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

One by one, the activists have been

brought to court

to sit in these cages while their

lawyers ask for bail.

And one by one they've been denied

and sent back to prison,

where they've already spent

three weeks.

I remember a real feeling

of injustice,

and a sense that we were going to be

in this for a lot longer now.

I felt defeated.

I thought, "This is it.

"We're going to be here for years."

Your hopes are kind of

crushed all over again.

NEWS REPORT: Today,

the Dutch government,

under whose flag

the Arctic Sunrise sails,

will go to the International

Maritime Court in Hamburg

to try to get it back.

DANIEL: It was clear at that point

in time

that the International Tribunal

for the Law of the Sea

was really the last hope to get

them out of detention.

Please be seated.

We were still trying to get

that footage from Phil.

We wanted to be able to show

the international tribunal

who were the pirates.

We'd known that the ITLOS

hearing was happening.

I had to get the footage out now.

It had to be today.

There was a guard on the door,

but I had my back to him.

And I think, "I've just got

to do this."

I hand over, theatrically,

this now magic matchbox.

I wanted to get across that it's not

just a matchbox you've got here.

Ancl this moment was, like, bingo.

I know there is a SD card inside.

I just put it into my pocket.

Now I have it.

It was a lot of tension.

What if today there is a prison

guard making a complete search?

I was nervous, of course.

And then the lawyer and Tanya left.

Time to hope and pray.

The 1972 international regulations

do not permit states

to board a foreign vessel.

The Dutch lawyers presented

the case.

We hoped the footage would arrive,

but ultimately we didn't think

it would.

The arrest and detention of the crew

of the Arctic Sunrise

is not only a breach

of the law of the sea,

but also of international

human rights law.

I felt like, "OK, as fast as

possible, go out, go out, go out."

Have a really big trembling inside.

If I go out one door, and then

there was another cage door.

Next, metal detector.

I knew that this one, if I cross

this line, then it's clone.

I thought, "I mustn't take the SD

card through the metal detector."

I put my cigarettes

and match box aside,

and then I pass through.

They check your bags, search me

then it's clone.

I got outside, everything was

so bright.

Victory.

The tribunal will now withdraw

to deliberate.

When I emerged from the courtroom,

a colleague came up to me and said,

"There's something important that

you should see."

NEWS REPORT: Greenpeace has released

previously unseen footage

taken when its ship was seized by

armed Russian security officers.

So, the legal team give it

to the Dutch lawyers.

It felt like a major victory.

Stuck one to 'em.

Ancl now we can only sit there

and wait.

Sitting inside my cell, hoped

and prayed that it would work.