Snowden Hails ‘Best News in Long Time’ as Canada Grants Asylum to Family Who Hid Him in Hong Kong
Posted on September 29th, 2021
Svetlana Ekimenko Courtesy Sputnik
The Sri Lankan family of four were part of a group of impoverished refugees living in Hong Kong who agreed to shelter Edward Snowden for about two weeks after his bombshell revelations in 2013.A family of four who offered shelter to former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden in their Hong Kong apartment when he was on the run after blowing the lid on NSA spying have been granted asylum by Canada.
Supun Thilina Kellapatha, Nadeeka Dilrukshi Nonis, and their children Sethumdi and Dinath landed in Toronto on Tuesday to start their new lives,” according to a statement by non-profit group For the Refugees. Originally from Sri Lanka, the family were faced deportation in Hong Kong after their refugee claims were rejected.
The family was part of a group of seven refugees from Sri Lanka and the Philippines who offered Snowden shelter in 2013. The whistleblower went on Twitter to applaud the best news in a long time.”
The non-governmental group also previously helped two other Snowden guardian angels,” as they were dubbed; Vanessa Rodel and her daughter Keana, originally from the Philippines but living in Hong Kong at the time, were given asylum in Canada in 2019. The seventh member of the group, Sri Lankan army deserter Ajith Pushpakumara, remains in Hong Kong, where his safety is still at risk,” according to For the Refugees.
We are happy with the end result – at least for six of the seven,” For the Refugees President Marc-Andre Seguin was quoted by AFP as saying.We are asking that Canada [again] do the right thing and admit the last of Snowden’s guardian angels before it’s too late,” he added.Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong and then to Russia after revealing thousands of classified documents exposing vast US surveillance put in place after 9/11.
Edward Snowden He spent more than a month stranded in a Moscow airport while Washington was trying to get him deported to America to face a criminal trial on spying charges. He was granted asylum in Russia and received a three-year residence permit in the summer of 2014, which was extended and eventually replaced by a permanent one.