• halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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    19 hours ago

    That’s what happens when the US waits to cancel your passport until you are stuck in the transit hub of a Russian airport waiting for your next flight out of the country.

    iIRC it took like 12 months until Russia granted Snowden asylum and he could leave the airport hub.

    • pfried@reddthat.com
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      4 hours ago

      It was revoked before he left China. https://apnews.com/general-news-587786e6e63b4dc2b70c471606d7f584

      That didn’t stop China from ignoring his asylum request following his release of documentation of hacked Chinese systems and kicking him out of the country because whether you have a valid passport doesn’t matter for geopolitical issues. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259508/edward-snowden-us-government-has-been-hacking-hong-kong-and-china

      Russia was under no obligation to keep Snowden instead of letting him continue to Ecuador. Putin just wanted to use him as a bargaining chip with the U.S., but the U.S. understood that all his documents were already public, so Putin hasn’t been able to play that card well yet.

      • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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        16 hours ago

        Ah you are right. I seem to have gotten it mixed up with the initial 1 year refugee status he was granted, before the first 3 year temporary residency permit.

        Either way, the US tried to prevent his leaving Hong Kong but however they submitted it, their request didn’t comply with Hong Kong law so there was no legal basis for them to detain him.

        Four countries had offered Snowden permanent asylum: Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela. No direct flights between Moscow and Venezuela, Bolivia, or Nicaragua existed, however, and the U.S. pressured countries along his route to hand him over. His intended destination was Ecuador, but his passport being revoked while he was in flight from Hong Kong meant he was stuck in Russia.

        He had given all copies of the evidence he had to journalists in Hong Kong reporting on American issues, specifically so when travelling through Russia they would have nothing to leverage.

        Snowden said in July 2013 that he decided to bid for asylum in Russia because he felt there was no safe way to reach Latin America.

        • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          Considering they grounded Evo Morales’ plane because they thought he was on it, I’d say that’s a fair bet.

      • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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        18 hours ago

        Which itself is based on the true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri who lived in Terminal 1 of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, from 1988 to 2006.

        It is uncommon, but passports being invalidated during travel does happen.

        • Something Burger 🍔@jlai.lu
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          17 hours ago

          Wikipedia says this guy was mostly responsible for what happened to him. He allegedly lost his passport, and refused any help from France and Belgium.

          • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.org
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            10 hours ago

            He actually sent his passport away to Belgium while en route to London, refused to sign a new passport with his real name, demanding one with the name Sir Alfred and no mention of his Iranian citizenship, and returned to the airport even after he had left it once to go to the hospital.
            Sounds to me like he got used to his life there, with the fame and not needing to work.

          • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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            16 hours ago

            Wikipedia says this guy was mostly responsible for what happened to him. He allegedly lost his passport, and refused any help from France and Belgium.

            No idea what the fuck you’re reading, because the Wikipedia page doesn’t seem to say any of that…

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

            Belgium isn’t even mentioned on the Wikipedia page. And France is mentioned specifically from an interview in 2019 where Snowden said he had requested asylum in 2013, but it was denied under President Hollande. A second request later was received favorably by Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet under President Macron, but no other members of the French government expressed support. That’s not at all refusing help from either of them. In fact there are multiple sections in there about his asylum requests to dozens of countries.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Flight_from_the_United_States

            In fact, the Wikipedia page goes pretty in depth about his intended travel out of Hong Kong. The US revoked his passport, it wasn’t lost.

            His plans upon leaving Hong Kong never had anything to do with US allies, it very specifically avoided them because of US leverage.

            So where, on Wikipedia, are you reading the exact opposite of what the Wikipedia page says?

            • fartographer@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              Little aggressive, but in your defense, pronouns with limited context can be difficult sometimes.

              Unless this is supposed to be a shit post, in which case, bravo.