28.11 Greenpeace Activist Rejects Dissident Label, But Vows to Fight On
MOSCOW, November 28 (Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti) Greenpeace activist Dimitri Litvinov plays down talk that he is a dissident, but the inspiration of his father, who braved the repressive Soviet regime to stand up for human rights, remains clear in his actions.
Litvinov, 51, who holds dual US and Swedish citizenship, was one of 30 people on a Greenpeace icebreaker detained in Russia in September for mounting a protest to draw attention to oil drilling in the ecologically sensitive Arctic Sea.
Joining the protest was an easy decision, Litvinov told RIA Novosti in an interview this week, and motivated by long-standing concerns over green issues that date back to the birth of his first son 26 years ago.
I didnt want him to grow up in a world where you have to go to a zoo to see a tree, he said in English by telephone from St. Petersburg.
The attention-grabbing gesture has cost participants a heavy price already, and things could get worse still.
Greenpeaces Arctic Sunrise icebreaker was seized by border officials after the activists attempted to fix a banner onto the Gazprom-controlled Prirazlomnaya oil rig, where offshore drilling is set to start by the years end.
Litvinov denied they wanted to storm or even scale the oil rig, which towered 40 meters high above their inflatables.
