Edward Snowden awarded with German Whistleblower Prize

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who exposed the widest US global surveillance operations, was on 25 July 2013 awarded German Whistleblower Prize 2013 worth 3900 Dollars in absentia.

Snowden has exposed the substantial and unsuspecting monitoring and storage of communication data by US and other western intelligence agencies, which cannot be accepted in democratic societies.

It was the top secret National Security Agency documents that were leaked by Snowden since the beginning of June 2013 which in turn made it possible and unavoidable intensive investigations to establish whether the operations of domestic and foreign intelligence services have violated the existing rules applicable to them.

Snowden has undertaken great personal risks in leaking the documents on the operations of the US and other western intelligence agencies, aware of the current criminal prosecution of whistleblowers in security areas.

Even after proving that the espionage operations partly or to a large extent were protected by the law, Snowden has helped in exposing such a dangerous situation, which cannot be accepted in democratic societies.

About Whistleblower Prize

The whistleblower prize which was instituted in year 1999 by German section of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the Association of German Scientists is awarded once in two years to honour persons, who “expose in public interest grave social injustices and dangerous developments for individuals and the society, democracy, peace and environment.

German chapter of the global anti-corruption organisation Transparency International joined the prize for the first time this year.