John Hocevar, from Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior, writes about the assault on the Greenpeace staff blog:

“We are in Valletta Harbor in Malta. We learned that there were two vessels here owned by Fuentes, the tuna tycoon who controls over half the bluefin catch in the Mediterranean. We decided to board the vessel to inspect the cargo and documentation. Three women, Emma, Rita, and Liz, were the first to volunteer.

After the vessels refused our polite request to allow us access, Emma stepped on board to press the point. She was immediately attacked – they punched her, pulled her hair, picked her up and threw her overboard. One person hurled a large wooden pallet which whistled by our heads, and another tossed a full bucket of paint into one of our boats. If either of those had hit their intended targets, someone could have been seriously injured, but fortunately no damage was done.”

This all reminds me about the video which shows peaceful environmental activists who were protecting an old-growth forest in Tasmania, Australia, being violently attacked by timber workers.

Peaceful environmental activists who were protecting an old-growth forest in Tasmania, Australia, have been violently attacked by timber workers as they were blocking the road for them.

The timber workers attacked the car that the protestors were using to block the road using a sledgehammer and kicking in its windows. They later dragged out a 22-year-old protestor and kicked him repeatedly.

The brutal attack was caught on tape by one of the protestors:

Via Ecowar