After tanker blockage: environmentalists acquitted

Eleven Greenpeace activists were acquitted of charges of “seriously disturbing public order” in a court in the Spanish Mediterranean city of Valencia on Tuesday.

In 2021, they successfully prevented the gas tanker Merchant from the USA, which had fracking gas from the USA on board, from entering the Mediterranean port of Sagunto for several hours. To prevent the police from clearing the “Esperanza” and driving away, one of the activists hung himself from the anchor chain, where he only gave up after 12 hours.

Unlike the public prosecutor, the judges could not see any “acts of violence or intimidation” in the action that would have been “likely to seriously disrupt the public peace to the extent necessary for the offense.”

The ten activists and the captain of the Greenpeace ship Esperanza can breathe a sigh of relief. The public prosecutor's office had originally demanded a prison sentence of five years and later reduced this to two years and six months. Greenpeace has also already paid a fine of 160,000 euros.

The blocked ship had 138,000 cubic meters of fracking gas from the USA on board. With the campaign, Greenpeace not only protested against the use of fossil fuels in general, but also against fracking as such. This process is a particularly harmful mining method that, among other things, contaminates groundwater.

For Eva Saldaña, executive director of Greenpeace Spain and Portugal, the ruling is “a victory (…) that stops the criminalization of activism and strengthens the right to protest at a critical time for democracy.” The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Gina Romero, also welcomed the verdict.