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Celebrities, Whistleblowers, Lead Petition to Ecuador for Snowden's Political Asylum
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Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman@justforeignpolicy.org
Petition Has Over 23,000 Signers
Washington, D.C. - Oliver
Stone, Danny Glover, John Cusack, Amber Heard, Shia LaBeouf, Roseanne
Barr, and musician Boots Riley have joined Vietnam War whistle-blower
Daniel Ellsberg and Iraq War whistle-blower Ambassador Joe Wilson,
author Noam Chomsky and many other prominent whistle-blowers, activists,
former intelligence and military officers, academics and others in
calling on Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa to grant whistle-blower
Edward Snowden political asylum. The full letter and list of prominent
signers was circulated by the organization Just Foreign Policy and is
posted on the group’s website.
The letter is here:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.
The petition is here:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.
"We're
proud to stand with patriotic American whistleblowers like Dan
Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley, Joe Wilson and Thomas Drake in appealing to
President Correa to grant political asylum to Edward Snowden," said
Robert Naiman, Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy. "For democracy to
work, Americans have to be able to find out what our government is
doing. Unprecedented government secrecy and an unprecedented crackdown
on whistleblowers are threatening the ability of Americans to control
their government. If President Correa grants asylum to Snowden, all
Americans who love freedom will be in his debt."
The actors, directors and
musicians were joined by author and journalist Naomi Klein, professor
and Middle East expert Juan Cole, “The Young Turks” co-host Cenk Uygur,
Thomas Drake (the former NSA Senior Executive and whistleblower), Coleen
Rowley (retired FBI agent & former Minneapolis Division Legal
Counsel, and one of three “whistleblowers” named Time Magazine’s
“Persons of the Year” in 2002), Jacob Appelbaum (developer of The Tor
Project), Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans (Cofounders of CODEPINK), Ann
Wright (retired US Army Colonel and former US diplomat), and Ray
McGovern (Former U.S. Army officer and former senior CIA analyst) among
many others.
Over 23,000 others have
joined in signing the petition as it has circulated on the internet. The
Ecuadorean government first reported it had received a political asylum
request from Snowden on Sunday.
The letter states that
Snowden has revealed “severe abuses of the basic constitutional rights
of U.S. citizens and the rights of people in other nations. Yet rather
than focusing on the danger to citizens' freedom and privacy exposed by
these revelations, and what reforms are necessary to protect citizens'
rights, the Obama administration, the U.S. Congress and much of the
media are again focusing their ire on the messenger” – Snowden, whom it
terms a “brave whistle-blower.”
The letter states that
the Obama administration has charged Snowden under the Espionage Act
even though Snowden “clearly did not commit espionage,” and that the
Espionage Act charges are “arbitrary” and “evidence of political
persecution.” It notes that the Obama administration “has charged more
than twice as many whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act than all
previous presidents combined.”
The letter also describes
the dangerous precedent set by the “cruel and inhuman” treatment that
U.S. army whistle-blower Bradley Manning has endured, and that Snowden
“would have difficulty in receiving a fair trial in the U.S.” It also
states that “[t]here is no evidence whatsoever that [Snowden’s]
revelations have in any way threatened U.S. national security or were
ever intended to do so.”
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman@justforeignpolicy.org
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