SNOWDEN NEEDS A NEW TRAVEL AGENT
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323936404578579962612795172.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
The glamour seems to be wearing off for Edward Snowden. The self-admitted leaker of America’s national-security secrets and hero of the world’s anti-American left now finds himself at the mercy of Vladimir Putin, the old KGB man and one of the world’s leading authoritarians.
Since fleeing Hong Kong with his WikiLeaks entourage, Mr. Snowden has been stuck for more than a week in transit purgatory at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. On Sunday night he formally requested Russian political asylum, but on Monday President Putin played coy. Russia won’t extradite Mr. Snowden to the U.S. but may not let the American stay in Russia either, he said.
Perhaps Mr. Snowden should have had someone other than Julian Assange as a travel agent. A better guide might have told him that Freedom House ranks Russia as “not free” and on par with Algeria in respect for political rights and civil liberties. Seventy-nine journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992, more than in any other country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Russian activist Alexei Navalny, who publishes his investigations of official corruption on his Web blog, faces a lengthy jail term on politically trumped-up charges. These things are good to know if you’re a self-styled crusader for “transparency” looking for a refuge.
Amid Obama Administration pleas not to shelter the American, Mr. Putin said Mr. Snowden should seek refuge elsewhere. And he offered “one condition” for him to stay: “He must cease his work aimed at inflicting damage to our American partners, as strange as it may sound from my lips.” But the Russian also cracked that Mr. Snowden “sees himself as a human rights activist and a freedom fighter for people’s rights” and doesn’t intend to “cease his work,” so Moscow may not be right for him.
Mr. Snowden got the message and on Tuesday withdrew his Russian application. He is now seeking asylum from at least 20 other countries, with no luck so far. In a statement released through WikiLeaks, he called President Obama’s decision to revoke his passport an “extralegal penalty of exile,” but nothing prevents him from returning to the U.S. to demonstrate the courage of his transparency convictions.
A version of this article appeared July 3, 2013, on page A14 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Putin Asylum.
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