WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison who helped Snowden reach Moscow fears returning to UK
Sarah Harrison, the WikiLeaks journalist, who accompanied Edward Snowden from Hong Kong to Russia and stayed with him until he was given asylum, says the whistleblowing site lawyers advise her against going home to Britain. ● The statement published by WikiLeaks on Wednesday explains how she helped Snowden successfully get Russian temporary asylum, which he received on August 1, despite “substantial pressure from the United States.” Harrison, who is 32, says she remained with him in Russia until it had been established that he “was free from the interference of any government.” “We have won the battle for Snowden’s immediate future, but the broader war continues,” Harrison writes. However, she voices fears citing examples of other whistleblowers being persecuted – such as Chelsea Manning, who has just begun serving a 35 year sentence for revealing embarrassing facts about US conduct during the Iraqi war; and Jeremy Hammond, a whistleblower, who is in prison for a decade in New York for allegedly providing journalists with documents exposing corporate surveillance. In the UK, her own home, Julian Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for over a year as the UK has refused to grant him permission to leave the embassy.