Snowden accused Russia of suppressing free speech on the Internet

Former employee of the US National Security Agency Edward Snowden criticized Russia for suppressing freedom of speech on the Internet and its attitude to the rights of homosexuals.

On the eve of Snowden awarded the Norwegian Prize named after the writer and humanist Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. At the ceremony, the revealer of the secrets of the NSA made a teleconference.

Snowden called the Russian government's move to increasingly control the Internet and privacy, and decide how it is appropriate or inappropriate for people to express their love for each other, as "fundamentally wrong."

Snowden also stated that he had never planned to stay in Russia, but simply turned out to be in transit here at the moment when the US authorities canceled his passport. According to him, he sent asylum applications to the 21 country, but never received a response. Russia for him was actually one of the last options.

Snowden also said that he did not think about his own safety, but he listened to the advice of the founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange.

Earlier, the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange in an interview with Times Magazine, he stated that he personally recommended the former agent of the US National Security Agency Edward Snowden to seek asylum in the Russian Federation, and not in Latin America.

“I think he (Assange) wanted to arrange everything in the best possible way. He thought, first of all, about my safety. He was to some extent a publisher who had a source of information. And he wanted to protect this source... But personally, I never thought about my own safety, about protection. I didn’t think that I would remain free, I thought that I would be sent to prison,” Interfax quotes the former agent.

Snowden handed the media documents on the NSA's electronic surveillance programs, and in June 2013 fled the United States to Hong Kong. From there he flew to Moscow to head from the Russian capital to Ecuador. However, in the end, he remained on the territory of the Russian Federation after the US authorities canceled his passport. Snowden spent more than a month in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport, then he was granted temporary asylum. It expired on August 1 2014 of the year, after which Snowden received a three-year residence permit in the Russian Federation.

At home, Snowden is charged with violating two articles of the US espionage law of 1917 - unauthorized disclosure of secret information affecting national defense, and the deliberate transfer of American intelligence data to people who are not entitled to receive such information. In addition, he is accused of stealing the property of the US government. For each of the charges, he faces up to ten years in prison.