October 2013

A photo is key when it comes to bearing witness and Greenpeace has been a leading organization in visuals for over forty years. We go to the frontline of environmental issues to see for ourselves what is happening so that we can show others.

On Friday, peaceful activists from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise woke up in a freezing jail cell in Russia for trying to protect the Arctic and fight global warming. At the same time the UN panel on Climate Change released its latest report on the status of the world's climate.

We have been standing in solidarity with our colleagues from the Arctic Sunrise here in Moscow since September 19th. All day, every day for nine days so far. We stand in a one-person picket near the entrance of the Moscow headquarters of Gazprom supporting our friends – the 30 Greenpeace activists arrested during a peaceful protest against the extraction of oil by the Gazprom Arctic platform "Prirazlomnaya" in the Pechora Sea.

"I have no idea how this will end, how long it will take. The uncertainty is driving me crazy," writes Greenpeace campaigner Faiza Oulahsen in a letter from her cell in Murmansk, Russia. She writes about her experiences from entering the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise until a few days ago when she along with 29 others lost their freedom to the Russian security forces. "Two months in jail is one thing, but then? What then?"