Spain Tries Greenpeace Five (War Protest)

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Spain tries Greenpeace five

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Wednesday May 11, 2005
The Guardian

Five Greenpeace activists went on trial in the southern Spanish city of Cádiz yesterday on charges related to a protest against the use of a Spanish port by US navy vessels heading for the Iraq war.

Two Spaniards, an American, a New Zealander and an Argentinian face prison sentences of between nine months and three years in connection with the Rainbow Warrior's "symbolic blockade" of the joint US-Spanish naval base at Rota. All the accused yesterday denied the charges, which included resisting arrest, disobedience and, in one case, causing injury to the civil guard who boarded the vessel in March 2003.

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"Our resistance is always totally peaceful. We never use violence because we are against it on principle," Luis Pérez, a spokesman for Greenpeace in Madrid, said yesterday.

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More than 84,000 people have signed a petition asking to be sent to jail alongside the activists if they are convicted.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1480884,00.html

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