Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg

There is a saying in Russian jails. Ne ver ne boysya ne prosi: don't trust, don't fear, don't beg. Don't trust because life here will always disappoint you. Don't fear because whatever you're scared of, you are powerless to prevent it. And don't beg because nobody ever begged their way out of a Russian prison cell. The plan was to attach a Greenpeace pod to Gazprom's platform and launch a peaceful protest against oil being pumped from the icy waters of the Arctic. However, heavily armed commandos flooded the deck of the Arctic Sunrise and the Arctic Thirty began their ordeal at the hands of Putin's regime. Told in the activists' own words and for the first time, this is a dramatic and inspiring story of incarceration and the ensuing emotional campaign to bring the protestors home.

Ben Stewart is a former Guardian Student Journalist of the Year. He was one of the six protesters cleared of criminal damage in a groundbreaking trial after climbing the chimney at Kingsnorth power station. In its 'Year in Ideas' issue the New York Times magazine described the verdict as one of the defining moments of 2008. In 2010 he led the first Greenpeace expedition to challenge Arctic oil drilling off the coast of Greenland. In 2013 he was a leading figure in the campaign to free the Arctic Thirty. He lives in London.