Musician Paul McCartney has written an informal letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of finding a solution to free 30 people who were detained during a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling, reported The Wall Street Journal.
28 Greenpeace activists with two journalists were detained "after some of the group tried to scale an offshore Arctic rig owned by state energy firm OAO Gazprom. Originally charged with piracy, the group of nationals from several countries including Russia, the UK and Brazil, are now facing serious hooliganism charges that still carry a sentence of up to seven years in jail," The Wall Street Journal also reported.
"The crew of the Arctic Sunrise was transferred to St Petersburg to pre-trial detention facilities at the beginning of the week. Prior to this they had been in custody in the northern Russian city of Murmansk up until September 18," news reports said.
The 30 people arrested face a maximum of seven years in prison on the hooligan charge, Rolling Stone reported.
McCartney met Putin in the Kremlin over 10 years ago, and the former Beatle played at the Red Square.
"In my experience they tend to annoy every government! And they never take money from any government or corporation anywhere in the world," McCartney writes. Putin's Russia has become known as a country that suppresses many dissidents and journalists.
Eleven Nobel Prize Laureates wrote a joint letter to Putin in October where they protested the piracy charges.
"It would be great if this misunderstanding could be resolved and the protesters can be home with their families in time for Christmas," McCartney tweeted.
The ex-Beatle, along with other musical artists like Madonna, Sting and Yoko Ono, also have taken up the cause to try and free the Russian punk-rock band Pussy Riot, news reports said. Two of the band members are serving two year sentences for their obscenity-laced performance against Putin at a Russian Orthodox cathedral in February, 2012. They were charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred."
Putin, however, has argued that the band "undermined the moral foundations" of the nation and "got what they asked for," he said.
