Russian lawmakers suggest U.S. is violating Snowden’s human rights

MOSCOW — The upper house of Russia’s parliament decided Wednesday to create a special group to investigate whether the United States is violating the human rights of leaker Edward Snowden by pursuing him on espionage charges.

…”Snowden is driven into the corner now,” said Russian lawmaker Ruslan Gattarov, who initiated the motion to investigate the American’s case. He said the Federation Council, or upper house, had already requested information on the case from the U.S. authorities but that “we have simply been ignored.”

House speaker Valentina Matviyenko said the panel would investigate whether Snowden’s human rights had been violated by the U.S. and “if there is interference in [his] private life.”

Another prominent lawmaker called Snowden a dissident and linked him to Julian Assange, whose WikiLeaks website published secret U.S. State Department cables, and U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, currently being court-martialed for giving classified documents to the website.

“Assange, Manning and Snowden were not spies, and they gave away secret information not for money but out of convictions,” Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the foreign relations committee of the lower house of parliament, wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “They are new dissidents, fighters against the system.”

WTF does Russia know about human rights?