EU members urged to drop Snowden charges
The European Parliament (EP), the European Union’s legislature, has approved a resolution calling on the bloc’s members to drop charges against Edward Snowden, thus preventing the extradition of the American whistleblower.
The lawmakers voted 285 to 281 in favor of the non-binding measure at a plenary session in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday.
The former NSA contractor hailed the EP vote as "extraordinary" in a post on Twitter.
The 32-year-old, described by the European Parliament as an "international human rights defender," began leaking classified intelligence documents after leaving his job at a US National Security Agency (NSA) facility and going to Hong Kong in 2013. He revealed that the NSA had been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans and foreign nationals as well as political leaders around the world.
On June 23, 2013, he flew to the Russian capital, Moscow, in an attempt to seek asylum in the European country two days after the US Department of Justice accused him of violating the country’s Espionage Act. Moscow granted him a three-year residence permit starting from August 1, 2014. He faces arrest on espionage charges if he returns home.
The EP resolution came after the European Court of Justice, the EU's top court, ruled against Safe Harbor, a data-sharing scheme with the United States, which would enable American companies such as Facebook to store the personal information of EU citizens on servers in the US, finding it in contravention of their rights.
The parliament has also hailed the verdict, saying it “has confirmed the long-standing position of parliament regarding the lack of an adequate level of protection under this instrument."
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