JAKARTA — Indonesia plans to deport seven foreign Greenpeace activists involved in a protest against deforestation, seen as a contributor to global warming, the group said Thursday.
The seven were among a group of 14 activists detained on Wednesday after some of them chained themselves to a crane at port facilities used by Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), in Riau province on Sumatra island.
"Seven foreign Greenpeace activists who were directly involved in climbing the crane yesterday will be deported," Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar told AFP.
Rampant deforestation has made Indonesia the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, according to some estimates.
Maitar said Indonesian authorities had no basis for expelling the activists, who are from Belgium, Germany, the Philippines and the United States, because they had valid business visas.
"We can't accept them saying that we violated the visas. They should know that Greenpeace's core business is campaigning," said Maitar.
Another five foreign activists had been sent to the capital Jakarta but would not be deported, he said.
Indonesia deported 13 foreign Greenpeace activists and two foreign journalists, an Italian and an Indian, earlier this month after a similar protest in Riau.
Greenpeace is calling on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to take strong action on deforestation in Indonesia in the run-up to global climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.
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