Part of the Trident: we don't buy it tour blog 
The Greenpeace ship MY Arctic Sunrise impounded at the Faslane Naval Base in the Gareloch following the arrest of its crew after an action to blockade the base.
This is a common saying on ships, and on actions. And over the last couple of days being on land during the Faslane naval base blockade, I am truly understanding its meaning.
On Friday the 29 people onboard the Arctic Sunrise were arrested. Standing on a bank opposite with a load of press photographers and a video camera, I watched and filmed the tugboats close in on the Sunrise, it was not an easy process for them. The MOD started with two boats, then three and finally four tugboats, and 20 military police boarded and occupied the boat.
We received the news that those Greenpeace activists who had been arrested in the morning, the ones out in the RIBs and canoes, had been released, so we went down to meet them. The logistical process behind this is huge. Legal support steps in, finds out where people are, what's going to happen to them, we need to work out where people are going to stay, where all their possessions are, get people cash to go home etc, etc.
We heard that the ship crew had been taken in under the same bylaw - one about entering a restricted area - as those arrested, and would be out in about eight hours. Figuring this would be 2am we expected to see them Saturday morning, as we thought the police would keep them in overnight rather than deal with the administration. Those on board had after all only so far been charged with breaking a bylaw. I certainly wasn't prepared for the news yesterday morning that they would be kept till Monday morning, when they would go straight to court.
Then we heard that all but four were going to be released so I scrapped our statement about how absolutely grotesque it is to lock people up for 72 hours on the grounds that they have broken a bylaw. I mean lets talk law here – replacing Trident is illegal under international law, so illegally building new nuclear bombs is the real crime. The point is perfectly shown by the 1999 acquittal of the Trident Three of nuclear 'crime' on the grounds that they were upholding international law.
I told the wires that people were in the process of being let out, and then spent the rest of the day hurrying up and waiting – to be ready when they were let out. Cars went off to pick people up at various police stations across Glasgow. Returning to our hotel expecting to see our friends we found instead that the police had discovered new 'evidence' – that would be our footage of the blockade then – and were in fact going to continue to hold them until Monday after all, when they will go straight up to Dumbarton Sheriff court.
Jo
