Kremlin 'helped Snowden from start'

[dawn frenzy adams]

26. The Kremlin was indeed helping Snowden!

Whatever Putin's motives are for granting Snowden asylum has nothing to do with human rights.


Here is an excerpt from an article from the St. Petersburg Times, dated July 24, 2013.

Why Putin Hates Snowden
By Michael Bohm

When Edward Snowden, with the assistance of his curators in the Russian government, held his makeshift news conference last Friday in Sheremetyevo Airport’s transit zone, it was no surprise that pro-Kremlin opinion makers dominated the short, invitation-only list of attendees. Among them were prominent lawyer and Public Chamber member Anatoly Kucherena, political analyst and State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov and human rights ombudsmen Vladimir Lukin. Basking in the spotlight amid Snowden’s sudden reappearance after nearly a month of being incognito in the airport’s transit zone, they took full advantage of this PR opportunity, explaining to several hundred journalists on hand that Russia should offer Snowden political asylum because he is a refugee of U.S. repression.

“Snowden is not a criminal,” Lukin said, “and deserves asylum status.”

“He deserves protection,” Kucherena said. “We need to defend him. I consider him a hero. … [The U.S. government] is persecuting him.”

This kind of demagoguery is expected from Kremlin loyalists. But what was surprising and disheartening was that the Moscow-based directors of two respected global rights organizations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, joined the chorus of support for Snowden’s quest to receive political asylum. It was unsettling to see these organizations in full solidarity with Kremlin spin doctors. Indeed, the two groups make strange bedfellows, particularly considering that these NGOs have been victims of government harassment and a state-sponsored smear campaign that depicts them as U.S.-paid agents.

These ardent Snowden supporters fail to understand a fundamental principle in asylum jurisprudence: Political asylum should be granted in cases of persecution, not prosecution. To qualify for asylum, Snowden must produce evidence that he is being persecuted based on his political opinion, race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group. These are United Nations and internationally recognized categories to determine the legitimacy of a person’s asylum request. Asylum should not be granted to suspected criminals like Snowden who are simply trying to avoid a jail sentence in their home country.

A good example of a legitimate asylum seeker would be Leonid Razvozzhayev, an opposition leader who fled to Ukraine in October to escape political persecution in Russia. When Razvozzhayev tried to seek political asylum in the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kiev, he was seized by masked men believed to be Russian intelligence agents, handcuffed and dragged back to Moscow, where he is still being held in pretrial detention on trumped-up charges of “plotting riots.” In this case, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were correct in protesting Razvozzhayev’s kidnapping, detention and prosecution.


http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=37670