A Russian court has jailed a photographer who was part of the 30-member Greenpeace team protesting near an oil platform last week.

Two members of the group were detained on September 18 in their attempt to scale the Russian Arctic platform. The coast guard seized Greenpeace's ship the next day and towed it with the 30 activists aboard to Murmansk. The activists are being investigated for piracy.

The court sanctioned a two-month jail term for photographer Denis Sinyakov, who was on that trip with Greenpeace, pending the investigation. No charges have been brought against Mr Sinyakov.

The judge has yet to rule in the case of the other 29 people.

Although Russian president Vladimir Putin said yesterday that the activists are not pirates, he defended their detention.

The detained activists are from 18 countries, including Russia, and a long detention or trials could draw unwelcome international attention to Russia's tough policy against protests.

The Arctic Sunrise sails under the Dutch flag. The Netherlands has asked Russia to release the ship and its crew immediately, explain the legal basis for their actions against the Arctic Sunrise, the exact location it was seized and any charges against the activists.

The platform, which belongs to an oil subsidiary of state natural gas company Gazprom, is the first offshore rig in the Arctic. It was deployed to the vast Prirazlomnoye oil field in the Pechora Sea in 2011, but its launch has been delayed by technological challenges. Gazprom said earlier this month that it was to start pumping oil this year, but no precise date has been set.