Urgent plea to help Snowden’s ‘guardian angels’
In the two weeks since lawyers in Montreal drew attention to the plight of Edward Snowden’s “guardian angels” — the asylumseekers who sheltered the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower in Hong Kong — Canadians have offered to open up their homes, volunteer their time and donate money for their upkeep and legal fees.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the actor who played Snowden in the Hollywood film bearing his name, personally donated a large chunk of the $100,000 raised so far in a fundraising campaign for the angels.
At the same time, however, the notoriety from the film and the efforts to bring the angels to Canada have also exposed them to greater danger, said lawyer Marc-André Séguin, as Hong Kong authorities have stepped up their efforts to get rid of them.
The seven people, who requested asylum in Canada in January, have all been summoned for expedited deportation hearings in Hong Kong this week that will likely see them shipped back to their countries of origin, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, to uncertain fates.
They all received letters within hours of the March 9 news conference.
“This only goes to show one thing,” said Séguin, the president of the non-profit For the Refugees, at a news conference Wednesday. “Our clients are specifically targeted by Hong Kong ’s immigration authorities, who are actively trying to get our clients out of its territory and back to their home countries, where they will be apprehended, tortured or killed.”
Given the urgency, Séguin and his colleagues have repeatedly asked Canadian Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen to intervene on the angels’ behalf — to fasttrack their applications for asylum in Canada or allow them to come to Canada while their applications are processed. But they have not received a response.
“We are not looking to set a legal precedent,” said Séguin, flanked by two other lawyers with For the Refugees. “We are looking for an exceptional solution to exceptional circumstances.”
Asked whether Hussen was aware of their situation and would intervene on their behalf, the minister’s press attaché, Camielle Edwards, said in order to protect privacy the minister’s office would not comment on any immigration cases or applications.
Back in May 2013, after spending eight days holed up in a luxury Hong Kong hotel leaking information about the NSA’s mass surveillance practices to two Guardian journalists and an American filmmaker, Snowden needed a place to hide.
His lawyer, Montreal-born Robert Tibbo, entrusted him to two refugee families in the city’s slums, who sheltered him for two weeks in poor, overcrowded conditions until he boarded a plane to Russia.
First, he stayed with Supun Thilina Kellapatha and his wife, Nadeeka Dilrukshi Nonis, both of whom had arrived there from Sri Lanka about 12 years ago, and their two children, who were born in Hong Kong and are therefore stateless. According to interviews given to the media, Supun was a cricket player whose family supported the losing side in the brutal civil war. Nadeeka was a textile worker, who was stalked and repeatedly raped by someone with ties to government. They met in Hong Kong. When Snowden arrived, they let him have the only bed.
Then Ajith Pushpakumara, a former soldier in the Sri Lankan military also in Hong Kong for the last 12 years, escorted Snowden to the house of Vanessa Rodel, a single mother of Philippine origin, who lives with her five-year old daughter.
Via Skype Wednesday, Rodel told reporters in Montreal she was afraid of being deported back to the Philippines, where president Rodrigo Duterte has been a vocal supporter of the extrajudicial killing of suspected drug users and criminals, among other people.
“I’m very worried and afraid for me and my daughter,” said Rodel, who has been in Hong Kong for 14 years, but now has a deportation hearing scheduled for Friday. “I know that my asylum status will be rejected. I am worried about my daughter’s future. At her age she doesn’t deserve this treatment in Hong Kong.”
Séguin noted that Hong Kong ’s acceptance rate of refugees since 1992 is, in fact, zero per cent. And while the angels used to receive benefits from the Hong Kong government, they have recently been cut off, he said, and are not allowed to work or go to school. If they are slated for deportation, they will likely be detained, while the three children — all stateless — will go to foster families. The lawyers have also received several reports, they say, of Sri Lankan operatives travelling to Hong Kong to locate their clients, and questioning their relatives in Sri Lanka.
“They have spent a third of their lives in limbo in Hong Kong,” Séguin said. “But now they are an embarrassment for Hong Kong, in the international and local media, and Hong Kong wants them out.”
Canadians, however, should be proud to assist these selfless individuals, he continued.