Rights groups urge Obama to pardon Snowden

Non-government organizations and human rights groups urged US President Barack Obama on Wednesday to "place himself on the right side of history" and pardon US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Officials from Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch said Snowden "faces the possibility of decades in prison for speaking out to defend human rights" if he returns the United States. He is currently living in Russia, where he was granted asylum after the US revoked his passport.

Speaking at the campaign launch in New York via video link from Russia, Snowden said it would "chill speech" and "erode the quality of our democracy" if he served a long prison term in the United States.

The US government charged Snowden with espionage and theft of state secrets in 2013 after he released thousands of confidential NSA documents to journalists, including Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill.

Signature campaign launches online

Signatures urging Obama to pardon Snowden are being collected through the website pardonsnowden.org, while Amnesty International also launched an online petition on its website.

Prominent individuals and organizations joined the chorus calling for a presidential pardon. These include Bernie Sanders, the US Democratic Party senator who finished second in the party's presidential candidate race, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

AI: "Punishing Snowden sends dangerous message"

Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty said that by leaking information on the US government's illegal spying Snowden clearly acted in the public interest, launched a global movement in defense of privacy in the digital age and sparked one of the most vital debates about government surveillance in decades

"Punishing him for this sends out the dangerous message that those who witness human rights violations behind closed doors should not speak out," Shetty said. "It is ironic that it is Snowden who is being treated like a spy when his act of courage drew attention to the fact that the US and UK governments were illegally spying on millions of people without their consent."

Plea issued on back of film release

The petitions come on the back of the recent screening of a new Snowden biopic at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film is directed by anti-establishment director Oliver Stone and stars Joseph Gordon-Levit as Snowden.

Snowden's lawyer, Ben Wizner, was quoted as saying that he thinks "Oliver will do more for Snowden in two hours than his lawyers have been able to do in three years."

The film is scheduled for worldwide release in September.

WikiLeaks representative: Amnesty unlikely

However, WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison said she thought it was unlikely that Snowden would receive amnesty as whistleblower protection laws in the US were too weak. However, "public awareness is improving and that's always a first step," she added.

"What will help Snowden's situation and potential other whistleblowers as well, is getting more public awareness of the retaliation that's used against people that do these sorts of things," she said.

On Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest reaffirmed the government's position. Earnest said the president believed Snowden's leaks harmed US national security and that he should return to the United States to face charges.

Last year, the White House rejected a petition of more than 150,000 signatures urging Snowden be pardoned, stating that he should be judged by a jury of peers.

dm/sms (AFP, AP, dpa)