Report: Snowden to meet rights groups at Moscow airport

[tangent4ronpaul]

Report: Snowden to meet rights groups at Moscow airport
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/12/edward-snowden-moscow-airport/2511207/

MOSCOW — Edward Snowden, the alleged National Security Agency leaker, will meet with human rights groups at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Friday, reports said.

The meeting is planned for later Friday early evening local time, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. The news agency quoted a representative of Sheremetyevo Airport as saying: "The meeting will take place at 17:00 (Moscow time), we will arrange for access and a platform for the meeting."

Transparency International, a global corruption watchdog, confirmed to USA TODAY that the group received an invitation from Snowden, in which he says that as someone who openly advocates human rights he wanted to meet with activists.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, a representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as several individuals, have also been invited, RIA Novosti reported.

Snowden will reportedly make a statement after the meeting. It is not immediately clear what he will talk about, although in the invitation sent to the activists — the veracity of which has not been independently verified — Snowden said: "I invite the Human Rights organizations and other respected individuals addressed to join me ... for a brief statement and discussion regarding the next steps forward in my situation."

The emailed invitation from edsnowden@lavabit.com also states: "I have been extremely fortunate to enjoy and accept many offers of support and asylum from brave countries around the world. These nations have my gratitude, and I hope to travel to each of them to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders."

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that the Kremlin has not been invited to the meeting.

Snowden arrived in Russia on June 23 but has not been seen in public despite being believed to be in the airport's transit zone while bidding for asylum.

He is thought to be seeking refuge in a Latin American country, with Venezuela the current front-runner even though President Nicolas Maduro has said that no formal application has been made.

Update: HRW has declined to attend

-t

[tangent4ronpaul]

Purported E-Mail From Snowden Asks for Meeting With Rights Groups
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/world/europe/purported-e-mail-from-snowden-asks-for-meeting-with-rights-groups.html?_r=0

MOSCOW — Officials at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport said that Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American intelligence contractor, plans to meet with representatives of international human rights organizations at the airport on Friday afternoon, breaking his silence after spending nearly three weeks in the airport’s transit zone.

Anna Zakharenkova, the airport’s director of public relations, said that the rights workers will gather in Terminal F at 5 p.m., to be escorted through security and passport control and into the transit zone, where they will have the opportunity to meet with Mr. Snowden.

Several prominent human-rights organizations received e-mailed invitations late on Thursday to meet with Mr. Snowden, though they were initially doubtful about their origin.

No invitation was extended to Russian officials, said Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman. Journalists asked to be included were told that Mr. Snowden’s team “will be following up with the press shortly afterward.”

Mr. Snowden has been staying at the airport, evidently in its transit zone, since flying in from Hong Kong on June 23. Though he apparently intended to board a connecting flight headed to Latin America, he then found himself in geopolitical limbo, because the United States voided his passport and he carried no valid identification.

The United States has conducted a diplomatic full-court press in an attempt to prevent Mr. Snowden from receiving asylum in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, three left-leaning governments who have said they would take him in.

Sergei Nikitin, an official at Amnesty International, said he planned to go to the airport in hopes of making contact.

“I have no way to confirm it, I am proceeding from the notion that the letter came from the person who signed it,” he said. “If it’s a trick, that’s sad.” He added that Amnesty International has spoken out forcefully in support of Mr. Snowden’s right to political asylum.

Russia’s human rights commissioner, Vladimir P. Lukin, also said that he was prepared to meet with Mr. Snowden.

“I have heard that Snowden wants to meet up; I am ready,” he told the Interfax news service on Friday morning. “We can meet. I have no objections.”

Representatives of Human Rights Watch and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees confirmed that they had received the invitation to a meeting. A note accompanying the invitation condemned efforts by the United States government to prevent Mr. Snowden from receiving political asylum in other countries.

The e-mail, signed “Edward Joseph Snowden,” said he has “been extremely fortunate to enjoy and accept many offers of support and asylum from brave countries around the world,” and that he hopes to visit each of them personally to express his thanks. It went on to say that the American government has carried out an “unlawful campaign” to block his asylum bids.

“The scale of threatening behavior is without precedent: never before in history have states conspired to force to the ground a sovereign president’s plane to effect a search for a political refugee,” the note said. “I invite the human rights organizations or other respected individuals address to join me on 12 July at 5:00 p.m. at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow for a brief statement and discussion regarding the next steps forward in my situation.”

The message referred to an episode on July 2 in which a plane carrying President Evo Morales back to Bolivia from Moscow was rerouted after being denied entry into the airspace of France and Portugal because of suspicions that Mr. Snowden was on board.

Galina Negrustuyeva, a spokeswoman for the U.N.H.C.R.'s mission in Moscow, said the organization’s representatives have not been able to confirm that the invitation was from Mr. Snowden and had not decided whether to attend. Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch, who also received an invitation, said she had doubts about the statement, which she described as “very awkward, very strange.”

Mr. Snowden is wanted by the United States on charges of revealing classified government information about global American surveillance programs.

-t

[Warlord]

Pray for Eddie!