Edward Snowden asylum vote splits Dutch MEPs
On Thursday the European Parliament called on EU member states to give infamous American whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum as a defender of international human rights. The vote on this issue split the Dutch Euro Parliamentarians almost right down the middle.
According to IT news site Webwereld, 10 Dutch Euro Parliamentarians voted for the motion, 10 against. Two abstained and four did not vote.
The votes in favor of protecting Snowden came from the D66 (4), GroenLinks (2), SP (2) and one each from the PvdA and the PvdD. The votes against came from the CDA (5), the PVV (4) and the SGP (1).
Edward Snowden is perhaps the most well-known whistleblower in the world. He worked for American intelligence agency up until 2013, when he released a large amount of documents showing that the Americans collect data on a large scale.
In January of this year he annoyed a number of Dutch officials by stating: “The Dutch work for the Americans. They do what we tell them to do. They are not appreciated because of their abilities, but because of the free passage they offer.” Rob Bertholee, chief of the Dutch intelligence service AIVD, responded by saying that this is "absolute bullshit".
