14 DAY TRIAL // Edward Snowden has called on a meeting with human rights activists and lawyers in the Russian airport where he’s been holed up for weeks.
The meeting has already started and the media is trying to get a glimpse at the meeting, but security seems to be quite tight, as Snowden said in the letter he sent out yesterday.
Snowden has already made an appearance and he is joined by Sarah Harrison from WikiLeaks.
- According to reports, Snowden has thanked all countries that have offered him asylum, namely Venezuela, Russia, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, although the only formal offer comes from Venezuela.
Edward Snowden says that he needs help in guaranteeing safe passage to Latin America, although he doesn’t name which country he’ll choose to go to.
- Furthermore, he will submit an asylum request to Russia, although he mentions aiming to go to South America in the future.
Snowden claims that governments from Western Europe and North America are acting outside the law and are preventing him to travel.
Snowden says he is accepting Russia’s asylum offer only because he is unable to travel otherwise.
Russia has made an offer to receive Snowden, but Vladimir Putin mentioned that the NSA whistleblower would have to stop harming the United State.
Snowden has already asked for asylum in Russia but later retracted the request after Putin’s speech.
Edward Snowden makes an appearance at a meeting in Moscow. Copyright Tanya Lokshina/Human Rights Watch
- However, Snowden says he would like to gain temporary asylum in Russia.
He asks human rights activists to appeal to Putin in his name, possibly in order to get a rapid acceptance of his request.
- Snowden would also like the United States and the European Union to stop interfering with his asylum since that is outside the law.
- Snowden claims that unlike what some think, he doesn’t want to harm the United States, he wants it to succeed.
As he previously stated, he only wanted to tell the world the truth about what the NSA had been doing. However, his leaked documents have hurt the diplomatic relationships of the United States with numerous countries in the world and will most likely continue to do so.
- An official statement from Snowden will be published later today by WikiLeaks, as they announced on their Twitter account.