Rainbow Warrior impounded; 90 arrested

Two Greenpeace ships - one of them the Rainbow Warrior - have been impounded and their captains and 90 others arrested after three days of nonviolent direct actions in the Netherlands.

Some of the 100 volunteers occupying the construction site of a new E.on coal plant in Rotterdam.

I'll start at the beginning. On Friday evening, nearly 100 Greenpeace volunteers pitched tents next to the construction site of a new E.on coal plant in Rotterdam (one of eight E.on plans to build in Europe), to bear witness to the unfolding climate disaster.

At first light on Saturday, they moved onto the site and occupied it, stopping construction for 10 hours before all being arrested.

The nearby Rainbow Warrior, supporting the direct action, was boarded by police on Saturday night - and then again on Sunday afternoon - before going on to block Rotterdam harbour and stop coal ships from entering it along with another of our ships, Beluga II.

Yesterday evening, the police aggressively took control of the Warrior, forcing the captain to leave the coal port. Beluga II maintained her position to continue blockading the coal port for a while.

Both the Rainbow Warrior and Beluga II have now been impounded, and both captains (including Mike Finken who you may remember from the recent Give Coal the Boot tour in the UK) have been taken for police questioning. As our international website says: "If only the Dutch government would deal with climate change so aggressively."

More as it happens - and keep up with the latest on our international website.