A MEMBER of the Arctic 30 spoke about his involvement in the Greenpeace protest at Bridges Community Centre last Wednesday (22nd January).

Anthony Perrett was imprisoned by Russian authorities on hooliganism charges following a peaceful protest against the Gazprom Arctic drilling platform Prirazlomnaya.

Mr Perrett shared his story with the public about Greenpeace's campaign to stop oil drilling in the Arctic, his time in prison and how he feels the media coverage has helped publicise the campaign.

The former Caldicot councillor kicked off his story by explaining why the group were protesting in the Arctic. Mr Perrett said: "The Gulf of Mexico disaster went on for 87 days and was catastrophic. If a similar accident happened in the Arctic there would be no way of cleaning it up."

The group planned to protest by boarding the oil rig: "According to the law of the sea you can only have a select number of people working on an oil rig at any one time, if this number is exceeded then work has to stop immediately.

"The border patrol police were shadowing us on the way to the platform. We were very passive, every time they came close we put our hands in the air. We attempted to board the platform and they kept cutting the ropes.

"The police did fire several shots into the water, they were warning shots so they didn't fire at us."

The following day a helicopter hovered above the Greenpeace vessel and police came down and landed on the helideck. Mr Perrett said: "I wasn't sure what was happening at the time. The police were all armed and they came to take control of the vessel. Everyone put their hands up in passive resistance. The police told the captain that they needed to be taken to Murmansk, which was a five day tow.

"The tow was quite dramatic and on the last couple of days there was a storm. It seemed like a very long journey as we were only travelling around four knots.

"Murmansk was a very interesting place, although it was quite eerie. They were preparing for the onset of a severe winter at the time."

The 30 were taken away by Russian authorities and were detained for two months in prison: "There are certain parts of Russian society that are really beautiful, the people are lovely but very different to the British, they don't speak unnecessarily."

Mr Perrett believes that the worldwide publicity generated by the media helped to draw attention to the campaign.

Mr Perrett said: "This campaign has been massively publicised in comparison to others. It's good that everyone's talking about it, particularly as climate change is not discussed in Russia."