Jailed activist tells of life in cold cell
October 27, 2013
"I prayed for the first time in my life the other day. I prayed for freedom and courage." Photo: AP/Greenpeace
She spends 23 hours a day in a draughty Russian prison cell, with Arctic blizzards blowing outside, and is allowed to walk outside in ''an outdoor chicken pen'' for just an hour a day. Greenpeace activist Alexandra Harris, a 27-year-old permanent Australian resident and British citizen, has written to her Sydney manager James Lorenz to describe how she passes the time dreaming of running into her family's arms.
Ms Harris, from Manly, was in a group of 30 - comprising 28 Greenpeace activists, a freelance photographer and a videographer - charged with piracy by Russian authorities after they tried to scale a state-owned oil platform in a protest against drilling in the Arctic last month. On Thursday, Russia's Federal Investigative Committee dropped piracy claims against the group, which includes three Australian residents, but replaced them with hooliganism charges, which carry a jail term of up to seven years, instead of 15 years for piracy.
Ms Harris passes the time in her Murmansk cell desperately trying to keep her mind occupied. ''I try to keep myself 'busy' with little things like doing the laundry, sweeping the floor and doing exercises,'' she wrote in her first letter to Australia. ''We're allowed to leave our cell and walk for one hour each day. We're locked in what can be described as an outdoor chicken pen [to walk]. It's horrible. But yesterday I saw that someone had scratched 'Save the Arctic' into the wall. It made me laugh.'' Ms Harris said she feared spending winter in the prison, which is inside the Arctic circle. Daily average temperatures for October range from minus six degrees to one degree.
''It's very cold now,'' she wrote. ''It snowed last night. The blizzard blew my very poorly insulated window open and I had to sleep wearing my hat. I'm nervous about spending winter here. I have a radiator in my cell but it's the Arctic breeze that makes the place very cold.''
The Russian Foreign Ministry also said it would not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in a case mounted by the Netherlands in an attempt to free the activists immediately.
October 27, 2013
"I prayed for the first time in my life the other day. I prayed for freedom and courage." Photo: AP/Greenpeace
She spends 23 hours a day in a draughty Russian prison cell, with Arctic blizzards blowing outside, and is allowed to walk outside in ''an outdoor chicken pen'' for just an hour a day. Greenpeace activist Alexandra Harris, a 27-year-old permanent Australian resident and British citizen, has written to her Sydney manager James Lorenz to describe how she passes the time dreaming of running into her family's arms.
Ms Harris, from Manly, was in a group of 30 - comprising 28 Greenpeace activists, a freelance photographer and a videographer - charged with piracy by Russian authorities after they tried to scale a state-owned oil platform in a protest against drilling in the Arctic last month. On Thursday, Russia's Federal Investigative Committee dropped piracy claims against the group, which includes three Australian residents, but replaced them with hooliganism charges, which carry a jail term of up to seven years, instead of 15 years for piracy.
Ms Harris passes the time in her Murmansk cell desperately trying to keep her mind occupied. ''I try to keep myself 'busy' with little things like doing the laundry, sweeping the floor and doing exercises,'' she wrote in her first letter to Australia. ''We're allowed to leave our cell and walk for one hour each day. We're locked in what can be described as an outdoor chicken pen [to walk]. It's horrible. But yesterday I saw that someone had scratched 'Save the Arctic' into the wall. It made me laugh.'' Ms Harris said she feared spending winter in the prison, which is inside the Arctic circle. Daily average temperatures for October range from minus six degrees to one degree.
''It's very cold now,'' she wrote. ''It snowed last night. The blizzard blew my very poorly insulated window open and I had to sleep wearing my hat. I'm nervous about spending winter here. I have a radiator in my cell but it's the Arctic breeze that makes the place very cold.''
The Russian Foreign Ministry also said it would not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in a case mounted by the Netherlands in an attempt to free the activists immediately.
Pussy Riot was convicted of hooliganism and it can carry a hefty penalty. Ms Harris is now in a simple detention center in Murmansk. If convicted, she could end up at the Womens Strict-Regime Penal Colony in Mordovia where Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been incarcerated. Nah. Never happen.
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