President George W Bush is visiting the UK this week. Prior to his arrival, he told the BBC that protestors didn't worry him, adding that they were "lucky" to live in a country "where people are free to say anything".
Yet George Bush's administration is prosecuting an entire organisation - Greenpeace - for the peaceful activities of its members.
In April, 2002, two activists climbed onto a commercial ship off the coast of Florida and held a banner that read, "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging." We called on the US Government to seize the ship, which carried illegally logged mahogany from the Amazon.
The charges against the individual activists involved in the protest were settled last year, but the Justice Department filed criminal charges against Greenpeace itself in July 2003. Read more about Greenpeace v Bush.
The original indictment included the claim that Greenpeace was wrong about the presence of contraband mahogany on the ship that was boarded. In a revealing move, the Justice Department revised its indictment of Greenpeace, deleting the claim that Greenpeace was wrong about the illegal cargo.
We hope the US government will soon admit that not just one sentence in its indictment but the entire prosecution is invalid. Our purpose was to spur authorities to search the ship and seize the mahogany, whose importation violated US law. Instead, the authorities arrested the Greenpeace activists and, amazingly, did nothing to halt the mahogany smuggling.
In a speech earlier this week, former US Vice President Al Gore called the prosecution "highly disturbing" and said it "appears to be aimed at inhibiting Greenpeace's First Amendment activities."
Don't let Bush stifle free speech
We placed an advertisement in UK newspapers this week to raise awareness of the fact that the Bush administration is trying to stifle free speech in the US. Download the advertisement.
