Civil society of Slovenia against the data mining war waged by the American government and in defence of whistleblowers

The united Slovenian civil society challenges the government of the Republic of Slovenia and institutions of the European Union to immediately cease their hypocrisy and servility toward the United States government in the Snowden Affair. We also demand the following:

1. That the government of the Republic of Slovenia and institutions of the European Union take an official stance regarding Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden and the information that they have leaked.

2. That they take an official stance regarding the American government’s insistence that Manning and Snowdon are traitors, rather than whistleblowers, and toward the American government’s extortion of countries that have tried to offer Snowden asylum.

3. That they offer protection and asylum to the whistleblower, Edward Snowden, who has made personal sacrifices in order to protect our human rights and our interests.

4. That they protect European citizens from the massive intrusions of the American government into our private lives.

5. That they provide an explanation as to what happened to the airplane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales through European airspace.

6. That Slovenia, the European Union, and the United States issue a formal apology to President Evo Morales, and provide an explanation about the interruptions to his flight while in European airspace.

7. That the government of Slovenia and other European Union countries categorically demand of the American government a cessation of spying on and intimidating its allies.

8. That they support an initiative to strip American President Barack Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize.

9. That they support the nomination of Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize (proposed by a Swedish professor Stefan Svallfors

10. )That all treaties and contracts between Slovenia, the European Union, and the United States regarding the exchange of data be immediately cancelled, until it can be determined that such exchange has no harmful consequences.

Edward Snowden is a whistleblower yet he is being accused and pursued as a spy and a traitor. In accordance with the American constitution, universal human rights, and generally accepted principles of justice and humanity, Snowden informed the American and international public that the government of the United States was systematically collecting and storing a massive amount of our data, from electronic mail to telephone conversations, from banking to life style information. All indications show that the access of the National Security Agency to our data is total. Snowden risked revealing information about American data mining programs, as a citizen of the world, in the hopes that European institutions and individual countries would respond to this threat. The government of the United States not only strives to control our lives with these programs but it also harms our political and economic interests. If the interests and the reputation of the United States suffer as a result of the discovery of the truth, that is because of the unacceptable behaviour of the government of the United States and not because of the actions of the whistleblower. It is incomprehensible with what ease the government of the United States, the ostensible exporter and protector of democracy, forces its hypocrisy onto the rest of the world. The shameful grounding of the airplane carrying the Bolivian President Evo Morales is an act of state terrorism for which both the EU and the United States are responsible.

We support the following statement of Amnesty International: “No one should be charged under any law for disclosing information of human rights violations… Snowden is a whistleblower. He has disclosed issues of enormous public interest in the US and around the world.” We add that under no circumstances should anyone ever be persecuted for revealing the truth to the public.

We hereby express our gratitude to Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning for their courage and their responsible actions. We demand from the international community and especially from our own government that they do everything they can to protect these men and that they immediately cease the information war against them and against all humanity.

(Signed by all most important civil society organisations and major trade unions.)

KOKS, Koordinacijksi odbor kulture Slovenije, Društvo gibanje za trajnostni razvoj Slovenije – TRS, Društvo Iskra, FemA, Gibanje VLV (Vseslovenska ljudska vstaja), Gibanje za dostojno delo in socialno družbo, GND, Iniciativa za demokratični socializem, Iskra, Koalicija solidarnih, KSJS, Koalicija sindikatov javnega sektorja, MND Mreža za nesposredno demokracijo, Odbor za pravično in solidarno družbo, Protestival, Slovenska filantropija, Solidarnost – za pravično družbo, SRP, Slovenija, Resnica, Poštenje, Stranka za trajnostni razvoj Slovenije – TRS, 6.maj, Zofijini – društvo za razvoj humanistike, ZSSS, Zveza svobodnih sindikatov Slovenije