Thirty people arrested in Russia over a protest against Arctic oil drilling were moved from the northern city of Murmansk yesterday on their way to pre-trial detention centres in St Petersburg, federal investigators and Greenpeace said.

The transfer of the 28 activists and two journalists may be aimed at curbing international criticism of Russia over what the environmental group says was a peace-ful protest.

Activists have reported being confined for 23 hours a day in bleak, sometimes ice-cold cells in Murmansk, a port city above the Arctic Circle whose remote location complicates access for lawyers and consular officials.

The Kremlin has essentially rejected Greenpeace head Kumi Naidoo’s offer to travel to Russia and stand as security for the release of the detainees, who come from 18 nations on five continents.

They were arrested after coastguards boarded the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise following a protest at an oil platform owned by state-controlled Gazprom off Russia’s northern coast on September 18.

Charged with hooliganism and facing up to seven years in prison if convicted, they had been denied bail and held in pre-trial detention in Murmansk, 1,000 kilometres north of St Petersburg.

Families of detained hope for improved communication

Lawyers who tried to visit them yesterday were told they had been moved out before dawn, Greenpeace said and Russia’s federal Investigative Committee said they would be taken to detention facilities in St Petersburg.