"Piracy" is a broad term that covers several different criminal activities when they are committed at sea. Boarding another vessel without permission or authorization (or in the face of denial of these) does count as an act of piracy, yes.
On our national news channel, a Russian Greenpeace activist says that the tougher the sentence, the bigger win it is for Greenpeace. (Link, unfortunately in Finnish.)
I dunno, maybe send out letters, develop mailing and other contacts, ask for money through the many channels that handle that, tweet, set up an informational website that covers problems everywhere, go try and save some glaciers. Don't do crap that endangers the lives of real people doing real jobs because they have real families to support but try to do stuff that might lead the way to different more environmentally sound jobs for more people. Just as a quick thought.
A few posters seem to be under the impression that Sea Shepherd is a Greenpeace operation. They're actually completely different organisations. And Sea Shepherd's tactics are significantly more aggressive than Greenpeace's.

Then why are they calling on Russia to release the arrested activists?
Sea Shepherd illegally boarded Japanese whaling boats in the Southern Ocean in an action that has been described as "piracy".
Anyway, Human Rights Watch has weighed in against Russia in this case.
In this case HRW is wrong IMO. They boarded illegaly a vessel at sea, they need to feel the full consequence of the law. Letting get them away with a pat on the hand is more or less a call to get them to continue. Greenpeace and other organisation need to learn to work WITH the law. If they don't want to , then they need to be treated as felon/criminal.
In this case HRW is wrong IMO. They boarded illegaly a vessel at sea
they need to feel the full consequence of the law. Letting get them away with a pat on the hand is more or less a call to get them to continue. Greenpeace and other organisation need to learn to work WITH the law. If they don't want to , then they need to be treated as felon/criminal.
They haven't committed an act of piracy, so charging them with piracy is totally unacceptable.
Acceptable or not it is their problem for being idiots
Yet may have different meaning depending on context ranging from symbolical to concrete removal of armaments. Which do you think she ment when saying it in her phone-call while in custody? That her intention was actually to destroy or carry away nuclear weapons with her superpowers?"Disarm" and "begin disarmament" are functionally identical statements in English.
They were illegally trying to board one of the most dangerous structures in the world with no thought to either the crews or their own safety.
It is all very well to say it is their choice, but if something had gone wrong, it would be the rigs crew who are the ones risking their lives trying to save them.
They wanted the spotlight and they got it.
They just have to deal with the consequences