Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Sheremetyevo airport
<i>These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless.</i><p>Are people really not bothered at the irony in this sentence? Russia, as a country that stands against abuse of the powerless by the powerful?<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/world/europe/russian-court-convicts-a-kremlin-critic-posthumously.html?pagewanted=all" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/world/europe/russian-court...</a><p><i>If the posthumous prosecution of Sergei L. Magnitsky, the lawyer who was jailed as he tried to expose a huge government tax fraud and died four years ago in a Russian prison after being denied proper medical care, seemed surreal from the moment the authorities announced it, the verdict and sentencing on Thursday did not disappoint.<p>By all accounts, it was Russia’s first trial of a dead man, and in the tiny third-floor courtroom of the Tverskoi District Court, it took the judge, Igor B. Alisov, more than an hour and a half to read his decision pronouncing Mr. Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion.</i><p>It doesn't matter if it is hypocritical of an American like me to point this out, when it goes on in my country/government as well - but I find it willfully ignorant to label the Russian government as a defender of human rights like this.<p>edit: here is some more reading on Russia and this topic: <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/24/russia-worst-human-rights-climate-post-soviet-era" rel="nofollow">http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/24/russia-worst-human-rights...</a>