Pinoy mom, child seek asylum for hiding Snowden

MONTREAL, Canada—A lawyer for a family who sheltered fugitive former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden has asked Canada on Wednesday to take them in as refugees, saying they were being persecuted in Hong Kong.

Guillaume Cliche-Rivard of the nongovernmental group For the Refugees, which in March sponsored two other Snowden “Guardian Angels,” Filipinos Vanessa Rodel and her 7-year-old daughter Keana, made the plea on “humanitarian grounds” at a press conference.

He noted growing concerns about civil rights abuses since mainland China took control of the former British colonial enclave in 1997.

Originally from Sri Lanka, Supun Kellapatha and Nadeeka Paththini and their two young children are facing deportation after their initial refugee claims in Hong Kong were rejected.

Supun Kellapatha is also Keana’s father.

Hid in HK apartments

“My daughter should not be growing up in Canada without her father, and her half-sister and her half-brother, Rodel said.

The group hid Snowden in their tiny Hong Kong apartments in 2013 when he was on the run after stealing a trove of highly classified NSA documents, which revealed the existence of global surveillance programs run by the NSA in cooperation with partners Australia, Britain and Canada.

Snowden, who now lives in Russia, was charged in June 2013 in the United States with espionage and stealing state secrets. —AFP