'Snowden, Will You Marry Me?'
Published in Gazeta Wyborcza
(Poland) on 5 July 2013
by Monika Olejnik (link to original)
Edward Snowden has asked for asylum in different countries, including Poland. This greatly amused Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. At first he wrote on Twitter that it is out of the question, then TVN 24 [a Polish television station] caught on tape him reporting to the prime minister that we had taken a Slavic stand against Snowden.
Oh, how Mr. Minister sniggered at the fact that Snowden had asked Poland for help. The Office for Foreigners was informed just in case, surely to stop Snowden, even without a passport, from settling down in Poland.
The reaction was so quick because the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is known for slip-ups. The Belorussian oppositionist Ales Bialiatski was sentenced thanks to documents that the ministry conveyed to the Belorussian regime.
Is the chief of the ministry so afraid that Americans might think, by chance, that we are playing a double game? Americans require visas from Poles; CIA agents harass Poland by talking about prisons that were in our country; the Ballistic Missile Defense was smashed into pieces; the European Union is probably watched by the U.S. — and we quickly answer “no” to Snowden.
I agree with former Foreign Minister Wlodziemierz Cimoszewicz that it’s wrong and too quick a decision. Thanks to Snowden we’ve found out that Americans not only keep their own institutions and citizens under surveillance, but also EU countries. The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has also realized this, and he regarded eavesdropping on one’s own allies as a scandal.
Snowden, who is fighting for human rights, is “punched in the face” by everybody. He’s trapped at the Sheremetyevo International Airport.
President Putin, like a good uncle, is persuading Snowden not to harm America.
Anna Chapman, a former Russian agent expelled from the U.S., has recently written on the Internet, “Snowden, will you marry me?” Maybe it’s Vladimir Putin’s cruel joke.
It’s strange that the right-wing journalist community has kept quiet when it comes to Snowden. They have recently been writing positively about Putin, because he decided to issue a ban on adopting children to those EU countries where same-sex marriages are allowed. Maybe the “Smolensk crime”* will fall into oblivion and Putin will become their idol.
*Translator’s note: An ironic reference to suspicions that the 2010 Polish Air Force TU-154 crash was a coup d’état.
Oh, how Mr. Minister sniggered at the fact that Snowden had asked Poland for help. The Office for Foreigners was informed just in case, surely to stop Snowden, even without a passport, from settling down in Poland.
The reaction was so quick because the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is known for slip-ups. The Belorussian oppositionist Ales Bialiatski was sentenced thanks to documents that the ministry conveyed to the Belorussian regime.
Is the chief of the ministry so afraid that Americans might think, by chance, that we are playing a double game? Americans require visas from Poles; CIA agents harass Poland by talking about prisons that were in our country; the Ballistic Missile Defense was smashed into pieces; the European Union is probably watched by the U.S. — and we quickly answer “no” to Snowden.
I agree with former Foreign Minister Wlodziemierz Cimoszewicz that it’s wrong and too quick a decision. Thanks to Snowden we’ve found out that Americans not only keep their own institutions and citizens under surveillance, but also EU countries. The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has also realized this, and he regarded eavesdropping on one’s own allies as a scandal.
Snowden, who is fighting for human rights, is “punched in the face” by everybody. He’s trapped at the Sheremetyevo International Airport.
President Putin, like a good uncle, is persuading Snowden not to harm America.
Anna Chapman, a former Russian agent expelled from the U.S., has recently written on the Internet, “Snowden, will you marry me?” Maybe it’s Vladimir Putin’s cruel joke.
It’s strange that the right-wing journalist community has kept quiet when it comes to Snowden. They have recently been writing positively about Putin, because he decided to issue a ban on adopting children to those EU countries where same-sex marriages are allowed. Maybe the “Smolensk crime”* will fall into oblivion and Putin will become their idol.
*Translator’s note: An ironic reference to suspicions that the 2010 Polish Air Force TU-154 crash was a coup d’état.