Edward Snowden Tells World Leaders: 'You Can't Save Navalny. You Can Still Save Assange'

Edward Snowden, a former CIA contractor and whistleblower, has called on political leaders and journalists to take action in the case of Julian Assange.

What Happened: On Tuesday, Snowden took to X, formerly Twitter, to express his views on the ongoing legal battle of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. His tweet came amid Assange’s last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition to the United States where he faces potential life imprisonment on espionage charges.

Snowden’s tweet pointed out the inability of political leaders and journalists to save Russian activist Alexei Navalny, and highlighted their potential influence on Assange’s case.

He stated, “You can’t save Navalny. You *can* still save Assange. If you’re silent here, when and where you can actually influence the outcome, you were never standing up for principles—you were just hoping for applause.”

In another post in the same thread, Snowden condemned the United Kingdom’s year’s long efforts to extradite Assange to the U.S. for his crime of “journalism.”

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Why It Matters: Last week, Russian opposition leader Navalny died under mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison at the age of 47. He was a vocal critic of the country’s President Vladimir Putin.

It is pertinent to note that Snowden is also a Russian citizen, he was granted nationality by Putin in September 2022.

Snowden’s call to action comes in the context of Assange’s ongoing legal proceedings in the U.K. Assange is on the brink of extradition to the U.S. following a years-long legal battle, with only two U.K High Court judges standing between him and a possible extradition, reported CNN.

Previously, Snowden has publicly expressed his views on different issues via X, including the decline of the ‘American Century’ and the importance of privacy, when he supported the legal defense fund for Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, stating “Privacy is not a crime“.

Photo via Wikimedia

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