Snowden on the Hypocrisy of Bidden, Harris and Blinken for celebrating World Press Freedom Day

On the 4th May 2021, Edward Snowden replies to White House posts for World Press Freedom Day 2021

On the 4th May 2021, The New York Post writes

Edward Snowden slammed Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Tony Blinken for celebrating World Press Freedom Day as the United States continues its prosecution of Julian Assange.

In a post on Twitter Monday afternoon, Snowden responded to a tweet by the nation’s top diplomat celebrating the rights of journalists as the US maintains its extradition efforts on “espionage” charges against Assange.

“This would be more persuasive if the White House weren’t aggressively seeking an 175-year sentence for the publisher of award-winning journalism of global importance,” Snowden tweeted. “Despite pleas from every significant press freedom and human rights organization.”

In another tweet, this one responding to Harris, Snowden wrote essentially the same message.

Blinken’s tweet said that “the United States continues to advocate for press freedom, the safety of journalists worldwide, and access to information on and offline.

“A free and independent press ensures the public has access to information. Knowledge is power,” he continued.

On the 3rd May 2021, RT News writes

As US President Joe Biden marked World Press Freedom Day with praise of heroic independent media, his government still seeks to jail Julian Assange of WikiLeaks for the act of journalism, said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The famed national security whistleblower took the administration to task on Monday, after Secretary of State Antony Blinken boasted of the US devotion to “press freedom” and “the safety of journalists worldwide.” Assange’s ongoing prosecution is impossible to square with those vows, Snowden said.

“This would be more persuasive if the White House weren’t aggressively seeking an 175-year sentence for the publisher of award-winning journalism of global importance – despite pleas from every significant press freedom and human rights organization,” he tweeted.

While Biden himself spoke of the importance of “truth-tellers who refuse to be intimidated” in celebrating World Press Freedom Day, his administration continues to pursue an 18-count indictment against the WikiLeaks publisher, including charges under the Espionage Act brought by the Trump administration in 2019.