- MIAMI (Reuters) -- Greenpeace,
charged with the obscure crime of "sailor mongering" that was
last prosecuted 114 years ago, goes on trial on Monday in the first U.S.
criminal prosecution of an advocacy group for civil disobedience.
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- The environmental group is accused of sailor mongering
because it boarded a freighter in April 2002 that was carrying illegally
felled Amazon mahogany to Miami.
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- It says the prosecution is revenge for its criticism
of the environmental policies of President George W. Bush, whom it calls
the "Toxic Texan".
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- Sailor mongering was rife in the 19th century when brothels
sent prostitutes laden with booze onto ships as they made their way to
harbour. The idea was to get the sailors so drunk they could be whisked
to shore and held in bondage, and a law was passed against it in 1872.
It has only been used in a court of law twice, the last time in 1890.
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- Greenpeace says the decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office
to prosecute the organisation rather than just the activists who boarded
the APL Jade freighter is a sea change in policy, and a conviction would
throttle free speech everywhere.
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- It would also be a sharp blow against Brazilian efforts
to halt the trade in a hardwood so precious it is known as "green
gold". It yields fatter profit margins than cocaine and is blamed
for the destruction of vast swathes of the Amazon.
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- "Illegal logging goes on and they're bringing it
to Miami and making loads of money, and we're going to trial," said
Sara Holden of Greenpeace International.
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- The case is unprecedented, not just because of the bizarre
nature of the crime.
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- Six Greenpeace activists were charged after the 2002
protest in choppy waters off Miami, pleaded guilty and sentenced to time
served -- the weekend they spent in jail.
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- But U.S. prosecutors were not satisfied, and 15 months
later came up with a grand jury indictment of the entire organisation for
sailor mongering.
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- FREE SPEECH CONCERNS
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- U.S. prosecutors argue Greenpeace did something like
that when two "climbers" clambered aboard the Jade to hang a
sign demanding, "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging".
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- If convicted, Greenpeace could be placed on probation,
and pay a $10,000 (5,600 pounds) fine.
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- As significant as the prosecution itself, are the implications,
free speech campaigners say.
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- Not once since the Boston Tea Party have U.S. authorities
criminally prosecuted a group for political expression.
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- "It's ominous," said attorney Maria Kayanan
of law firm Podhurst Orseck, which worked with the American Civil Liberties
Union on a "friend of court" brief to back a Greenpeace demand
that the government reveal who ordered the prosecution.
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- "It will be very chilling because advocacy groups
whose members chose to engage in acts of protest which happen to violate
the law will be loathe to act at all."
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- Greenpeace hopes to focus on mahogany during the trial,
which will begin on Monday with jury selection in the U.S. District Court
in Miami, under Judge Adalberto Jordan.
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- In one line of defence, its attorneys will argue that
the activists were highlighting a crime, and giving Washington an opportunity
to live up to its commitment to protect mahogany as a signatory to global
treaties listing the wood as endangered.
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- Greenpeace Amazon campaigner Paulo Adario said a mahogany
tree could be bought in the Amazon for $30. Once turned into dining tables
and chairs for sale in New York or London, that same tree could be worth
as much as $120,000.
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- Along the way, Amazon Indians are driven from their villages,
officials bribed and activists assassinated.
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- Country-sized chunks of rain forest fall to chainsaws
as other loggers take advantage of the roads the mahogany hunters carve
to get at less valuable woods that would not otherwise have been worth
trying to reach.
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- "Mahogany is a red wood, it's red like blood, it's
red like shame," Adario said by phone from the Amazon port of Manaus.
"The U.S. government should help us to change at least the shameful
colour of mahogany (but) they are prosecuting us."
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