Snowden deserves world’s protection: Venezuelan President
Iran Press TV
Tue Jul 2, 2013 4:32PM GMT
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says US surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden deserves the “world’s protection” for revealing Washington’s spy program.
“He deserves the world's protection. He has not asked us for it yet. When he does we will give our answer,” Maduro said during a visit to Moscow on Tuesday.
Venezuelan president said nations must stop criticizing the 30-year-old former NSA contractor who has "done something very important for humanity".
Snowden has been holed up at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport since June 23 when he travelled from Hong Kong to avoid US extradition.
This comes while President Vladimir Putin said Snowden may stay in his country under “one condition: he should stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners no matter how strange this may sound coming from my lips.”
However, Snowden said he was free to publish more about the US spy programs, effectively withdrawing his request for asylum in Russia.
The American whistleblower has prepared requests for political asylum to over a dozen countries including India, China, Brazil, Ireland, Austria, Bolivia, Cuba, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and Venezuela.
This is while Washington called on Ecuador, Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia not to provide political asylum to Snowden.
The US has reportedly revoked Snowden’s passport, with State Department spokesperson, Jen Psaki, saying the fugitive “should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the US.”
Snowden leaked two top secret US government spying programs under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
Several US government officials including President Obama and FBI director Robert Mueller have defended the secret spying programs claiming that they are essential to the fight against terrorism.
GMA/PR
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