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"Peaceful protest" has taken on a bizarre and particularly twisted meaning. "Peaceful" to these protesters apparently means that they do not threaten to actively harm you in your physical person (i.e. they won't hit you or push you or shoot you) but they're thrilled to and intend to cause whatever manner of emotional or financial discomfort they can by whatever method they can. If you've ever watched a video of the Seattle WTO protests, that fact will become abundantly clear. For some reason, to them, it is "non-violent" and "peaceful" to barricade a street so that a person can't get to work unless they "force" their way through a chain of people who have locked their arms together. The poor person trying to get to work, then, finds himself the "violent" one because he has to move the other people in order to get past them.
Trespassing is ok, nuisance is ok, making things difficult or impossible for other people is ok. They're twisting language to suit their needs and purposes because to do otherwise would make them less sympathetic and more like the people they're so eager to stop.
In this case, they're going particularly to the extreme. They were trying to prevent the cargo from reaching its destination. Though pirates are usually smart enough to take the cargo for themselves, depriving the rightful owner of their cargo by illegally boarding the ship sure sounds like piracy to me. They should be treated no less harshly than any other pirate or terrorist. End of story.
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