WikiLeaks Attorney Praises Ecuador For Considering Snowden Asylum Request Despite U.S. Pressure

Описание: http://www.democracynow.org - The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is reportedly playing a central role in helping National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden leave Hong Kong and apply for political asylum in Ecuador. A Wikileaks activist named Sarah Harrison reportedly accompanied Snowden on his flight from Hong Kong to Moscow. In an interview with the New York Times, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was granted political asylum by Ecuador last year, said: "Mr. Snowden requested our expertise and assistance. We've been involved in very similar legal and diplomatic and geopolitical struggles to preserve the organization and its ability to publish." Michael Ratner, an attorney for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, praises Ecuador, for standing up to the United States. "They're trying to bully other countries, not only by pulling his passport away so that he can't travel, but by saying, 'Send him back to us. Don't take him in, there'll be consequences,'" Ratner says. "But none of those are legal. They're all just a big country beating up on small countries, and to the extent -- or other countries that they just want to intimidate, whether it's China or Russia or whatever. But the real point here is, that some countries are willing to stand up to the United States right now. Ecuador seems to be one of them."

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