Media reported on the EU Parliament’s vote to drop criminal charges against Edward Snowden and to encourage members to block his extradition “in recognition of his status as a whistleblower and human rights defender” (here based on Ryan Grenoble’s report in the Huffington Post of 29 October 2015).
ASSOCIATED PRESS 2015 file photo, Edward Snowden appears on a live video feed broadcast from Moscow at an event sponsored by ACLU Hawaii in Honolulu.
Although the vote was very narrow (285 to 281), it would be unwise to see this only as anti-american posturing [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/edward-snowden-gets-another-human-rights-award-in-berlin/].
In June of this year, the White House rejected the idea of dropping charges filed against Snowden under the Espionage Act. Snowden faces extradition to the U.S. should he enter any of the EU’s 28 member countries. At the time of his departure, Snowden applied for — and was denied — asylum in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. The FBI pursued him relentlessly, even notifying Scandinavian countries of their intent to extradite him should he leave Moscow via a connecting flight through any of their countries.
The new EP proposition specifically asks countries to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender.”
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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