Iceland’s Pirate Party is now represented in parliament after election success earlier this year and they are doing their bit for Edward Snowden by requesting that he be granted citizenship in Iceland so he can be granted asylum. The draft law suggests Snowden should immediately be granted citizenship as a means of offering asylum and preventing legal extradition. Though in the preliminary round of voting only 6 out of 63 of parliament’s members voted in favour of the proposal.
We wanted to do this earlier but citizenship is an extremely delicate issue when it’s granted by parliament instead of granted through ordinary legal processes…he would undoubtedly be extradited from Iceland unless he were a citizen of Iceland.” stated Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, Pirate Party Iceland MP.
Despite this Iceland’s foreign ministry said Edward Snowden’s case would be treated just like any other. Birgitta Jonsdottir, an MP from the Pirate Party, believes that the Icelandic government could not extradite Edward Snowden because he faces a possible death sentence in the USA. It is illegal to extradite someone who may face a death sentence in Iceland. Many reputable political figures in Iceland have called for the country to provide him with asylum but even Pirate Party MP Jonsdottir stated that coming to Iceland is a bad move for Edward Snowden given Iceland’s poor track record of offering political asylum.
Image courtesy of Pirate Party Iceland
