The Parliamentary Human Rights Group of the Swedish Parliament ask Mr Barack Obama to pardon Mr Edward Snowden. It has now been sent to the White House with endorsement from a lot of MPs (me included of course). Please see our petition here: snowden_pardon or below.
About my conversation with Mr Snowden 2015 (text in Swedish).
The Parliamentary Human Rights Group
President of the United States of America
Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW,
Washington, DC 20500, USA
Stockholm, 12 December 2016
Mr President,
We, the undersigned members of the Swedish Parliament, would like to express our grave
concern regarding whistleblower Edward Snowden . He remains in Russia, unable to travel
or return to the United States. Were he to return home, he risks being tried for treason all for performing what your former Attorney General Eric Holder has called “a public service” and what we consider to be a global public service in defense of human rights.
When Mr Snowden revealed the extent of NSA global mass surveillance in 2013, he initiated a global debate about and a global movement to protect human rights in cyber space.
Even you, Mr President, have said that the global debate he sparked “will make us stronger.” We believe that he did so because he felt a moral obligation to reveal the illegal, systematic surveillance that many states have engaged in over the recent decade. We believe that Mr Snowden should be rewarded, not punished, for the sacrifice he made.
We therefore call on you, Mr President, to pardon Mr Snowden with the powers granted to
you by Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.
Pending his pardon, we also urge US authorities to take the necessary measures to ensure that Mr Snowden’s passport is made valid again, so that he may travel and seek asylum in whatever country he wishes. Finally, we urge US authorities to strengthen the legal protections of whistleblowers, so that individuals who reveal government wrongdoing in the future are not penalized like Mr Snowden has been.
Yours sincerely,