That was already under threat and when you look at the world since it seems that that trend is accelerating. Snowden said: “ When I came forward in 2013, I said the reason that I came forward was that we have a right to know that which is done to us, and that which is done in our name by our governments. His message was going down so well, people stopped eulogising Jeremy Corbyn’s turn. “ We are told to believe that the state has these powers over what can be said and what can’t be said, but what happens if we permit that? Where does that lead? What are we? Can we be said to be free?”Īs the views on the streamed event racked up past 2,500, the online audience went crazy in the comments as Snowden spoke – even though ‘Pongo Pigpen’ continued off-piste with a rant about Dr. “ The charges are absolutely an unadorned legal fiction,” he said. Read more Snowden tells The Belmarsh Tribunal: If you love truth, you're as much of a criminal as Assange and risk sharing his fate “ However, at this moment, we all see this, we all feel it, it’s no less familiar than the shoes on my feet.”Īccording to Snowden, Assange “has been charged as a political criminal – something that I understand quite well – but he has been charged as the purest sort of political criminal for having committed the transgression of choosing the wrong side.”
“ I want to say that it is difficult for me to comprehend the spectacle of the press of a nation in the ‘developed’ world aiding and abetting, with full knowledge, a crime not only against this man but against our public interest,” Snowden said. Speaking in exile from Moscow to the audience of the Belmarsh Tribunal, Snowden said of Assange’s case: “ What were are witnessing is a murder that passes without comment.” He said the charges against the Australian had been reduced to “ an allegation of journalism in the first degree.” WikiLeaks duly published the damning documents.
Snowden, something of a hero in whistleblower circles, fled to Hong Kong in 2013 with a massive trove of classified materials, among which it was revealed that the US government was illegally spying on Americans.