What would you call it when someone boards a ship in international waters and presents a list of demands to the captain?
Six activists from Greenpeace have boarded a coal ship leaving Australian waters in a direct action aimed at curbing coal exports.
The activists, from several different countries, boarded the Korean-owned MV Meister at 7am on Wednesday. The ship is carrying thermal coal loaded from Abbot Point in Queensland.
Speaking to the Guardian from on board the ship, 34-year-old Greenpeace activist Emma Giles said: “We’ve taken the action today because Australia is on track to almost double its coal exports in the next decade. Both major political parties have no solutions on the table. It is time to slow down the coal boom.
“Our leaders are failing us so it’s up to us to take civil disobedience and to slow down and stop these coal ships. We are set to stay here as long as it takes.”
This “civil disobedience” goes by another, more factual name. It is called piracy.
The crew of the ship should have taken up their tools and promptly upended these “activist” pirates over the stern railing.
One difference between these activists and real pirates is that real pirates are armed with weapons, while as these activ-twits (most likely) weren’t. And even if those on the ship had repelled the boarders with the minimum available weaponry, the activists still could spin any video footage of them being repelled off the ship in their favor.
Hell, you never saw the Japanese side of anything on “Whale Wars”, did you?
At least the Greenpeace twits did finally leave the ship, even if unaided by .50BMG slugs from the Australian Navy as should be appropriate.
I find the sailors/boatmen tragically lacking testosterone.
What’s wrong with a John Wayne punch in the nose?
If you hang them for piracy nobody brings back the flash drives with footage. Flash drives don’t handle salt water all that well.