{"id":6504,"date":"2013-07-01T15:21:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T15:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6504"},"modified":"2013-07-01T15:22:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T15:22:17","slug":"6504","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6504","title":{"rendered":"Snowden asking 15 countries for asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"edwardsnowden2\"<\/a>Edward Snowden, t<\/span>he former National Security Agency<\/span> contractor who leaked U.S. security secrets and is now a fugitive,<\/span> met Monday morning with Russian diplomatic officials and handed them an appeal to 15 countries for political asylum, a Russian Foreign Ministry official told The Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a desperate measure on his part after Ecuador disavowed his political protection credentials,\u201d said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. \u201dIn the document Snowden reiterated once again that he is not a traitor and explained his actions only by a desire to open the world\u2019s eyes on the flagrant violations by U.S. special services not only of American citizens but also citizens of European Union<\/span> including their NATO<\/span> allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The official didn\u2019t disclose the countries that were on the list. The meeting took place at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Snowden has apparently holed up in a transit lounge since fleeing from Hong Kong while seeking a route to Ecuador or somewhere else that might grant him asylum.<\/p>\n

Kirill Kabanov, a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, a Kremlin advisory body, said he believes that Russia is on the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the given circumstances, Russia has two workable options: Firstly is to provide Snowden with some refugee-status papers so that he could buy a ticket and leave for some other country, or secondly to grant him political asylum,\u201d Kabanov said in an interview with The Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cSnowden’s actions were motivated by a desire to protect human\u00a0rights and freedoms and now many rights activists in Russia are talking about him as a human rights advocate who deserves to be granted asylum, although this measure is fraught with some political inconveniences for Russia,\u201d\u00a0 he said. – latimes.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked U.S. security secrets and is now a fugitive, met Monday morning with Russian diplomatic officials and handed them an appeal to 15 countries for political asylum, a Russian Foreign Ministry official told The Times. \u201cIt was a desperate measure on his part after Ecuador disavowed … Continue reading “Snowden asking 15 countries for asylum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,123],"tags":[1288,3053,3030,66],"class_list":["post-6504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","category-world","tag-asylum","tag-ed-snowden","tag-nsa","tag-russia"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/edwardsnowden2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6504"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6508,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6504\/revisions\/6508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}