Norway Court Rejects Snowden Request

EghtesadOnline: Norway’s Supreme Court has rejected Edward Snowden’s request to enter the country without the risk of being extradited to the US. He had hoped to receive an award for outstanding efforts for freedom of expression.

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28 November 2016

The Norwegian branch of the PEN writers’ group saw a petition seeking to secure Edward Snowden’s safe passage to Oslo rejected on Friday. Norway’s Supreme Court said it could not preemptively evaluate extradition requests, AFP reported.

Norway’s PEN Center had hoped to present the fugitive whistle-blower with the Ossietzky Prize for outstanding efforts for freedom of expression. “We are very disappointed and really regret it,” PEN president William Nygaard said following the court’s decision.

PEN had already postponed the award ceremony from November to next June in the hope that Snowden would be able to personally accept the prize. Nygaard said that Snowden would likely receive the award in Russia and that PEN would continue to “do our utmost to highlight the role of whistleblowers.”

Snowden faces charges of espionage and theft of state secrets in the US after he leaked details of a secret US eavesdropping program to journalists. If extradited and found guilty in his homeland, he faces up to 30 years in prison. He currently lives in Moscow, where he has been granted asylum by the Russian government, according to Financial Tribune.

The Ossietzky prize celebrates freedom of speech in journalism and literature. It is named after the German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who won the 1936 Nobel Peace Prize for disclosing Germany’s rearmament programs, a policy that violated the Treaty of Versailles. He was jailed for treason and unable to attend the Oslo ceremony 80 years ago.