7 Greenpeace Activists Arrested at Gas Station in Bulgaria

On Thursday, a group of Greenpeace activists occupied a gas station near Bulgaria's southwestern town of Blagoevgrad to protest against Gazprom's Arctic drilling. Photo BGNES

Greenpeace activists have been arrested by Bulgarian police for chaining themselves to fuel pumps and climbing on the roof of a Gazprom gas station.

Earlier Thursday, a group of Greenpeace activists occupied a gas station near Bulgaria's southwestern city of Blagoevgrad to protest against Gazprom's Arctic drilling.

Their banners say "Gazprom – Destruction of the Arctic" and "Free our Activists."

The gas station manager has called the police and arrests were made.

Two activists were detained for climbing up on the station's roof and five other for chaining themselves to the fuel pumps.

Protestors from six European countries – Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia demanded the immediate release of Greenpeace activists who were detained and face piracy charges after protesting at a Russian oil rig in the Arctic Ocean.

Russian border guards seized the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise and its multinational crew in international waters last Thursday after Greenpeace activists scaled the side of the Prirazlomnaya oil rig in the Pechora Sea in a demonstration against Gazprom's Arctic oil drilling.

The suspects face up to 15 years in prison under the piracy case opened by Russian investigators this week, which Greenpeace dismissed as absurd, saying that the protest was peaceful and that the border patrol had seized the Arctic Sunrise at gunpoint.

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