Report: “From Moscow with Love” – Edward Snowden
On September 22nd 2016 Volksbühne Berlin welcomed Edward Snowden via video link from his forced exile in Moscow to give an interview as part of their Europe series under the title “From Moscow with love: Edward Snowden on the criminal story of democracy.”
The interview was hosted by a panel of three: Journalist and publisher Jakob Augstein, who was in charge of moderating the event and introduced the remaining two panel members, theatre director and activist Angela Richter, wo had visited Snowden several times in Moscow and lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck, who is legally representing Snowden in Germany.
The temporal context is set by the release of Oliver Stone’s latest movie, Snowden, as well as the recently launched campaign by Amnesty International amongst others to pardon Snowden.
To view our previous work with Edward Snowden, click here.
Notice for an upcoming acTVism Event:
NSA-whistleblower, Edward Snowden, confirmed his participation for acTVism Munich’s next event called “Freedom and Democracy: Global Issues Connecting the Dots” at Muffatwerk in Munich. Snowden will be taking part via video-conference. In this event we plan to bring leading experts together to discuss the connections between various issues and reveal the system at work. We believe that we can only arrive at viable solutions by increasing public awareness of the principal and structural faults of our system. More details to the event coming soon!
After hearing a brief introduction and waiting anxiously for several minutes before Snowden appeared on the large screen hanging above the stage, the audience received him with great excitement and enthusiasm. The subsequent discussion covered a wide range of topics, from the meaning of privacy and the dynamics of power in a society to the relationship between the actual threat of terrorism and the degree of surveillance, as well as current developments in the movement against mass surveillance.
Describing the core problem of mass surveillance, Snowden states the discomforting fact that “we are creating perfect records of our lives , that do not belong to us” and raises the question, that everyone must answer for themselves “Do we want that?”
Aside from the extremely well-thought out and sobering information he discloses about power structures and the constraints of freedom, he shows a positive attitude toward a growing public awareness of the issues on privacy and insists that everybody has the capabilities to make a change. Snowden furthermore encourages the possibilities of using technology in favor of the people, “as a new means of enforcing human rights”. He speaks hopefully, himself being subjected to a seemingly hopeless situation, and always passionately about the importance of our right to privacy, as a basic human right, by arguing that essentially “privacy is what makes us equal to the world”.
A report from Zahra Amirzada
Click here or on the picture below.
acTVism Munich plans to continue translating the event organized by the University of Arizona, “A Conversation to Privacy” that hosted Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky. We Munich believe that privacy is a central ingredient to democracy and creating awareness on it on a global scale is of utmost importance for the future of human freedom and liberty. We will also continue to translate an event organized by the New York Public Library (NYPL) that hosted Yanis Varoufakis and Noam Chomsky. This event took place on the 26th of April, 2016, and focused, amongst other issues, on the state of European democracy; the underlying problems confronting it and the solutions required for meaningful change.
Secondly, acTVism Munich will gain full access to the German Federal Press Conference in Berlin starting late August. This will provide us an opportunity to pose critical questions directly to the German government which will foster awareness on a host of issues seldom discussed in the mainstream media. The attempt is to translate and synchronize the Q&As into English as well.
We lack technical and financial resources to translate the events and press conference mentioned above. Furthermore, we will only be able to attend the press conference once every 3 months due to the high costs of travelling and lodging.
Lastly, acTVism Munich received Edward Snowden’s confirmation on his participation in a future event known as “Freedom & Democracy: Global Issues – Connecting the Dots”. In this event we plan to bring leading experts together to discuss the connections between various issues and reveal the system at work. We believe that we can only arrive at viable solutions by increasing public awareness of the principal and structural faults of our system. More details to this event will follow in August.
We lack the necessary financial and technical resources to execute the projects, trips and events mentioned above. Since we are a non-profit and independent media outlet that has a strict policy against accepting advertisements, government or corporate support – we depend only on you, the public.
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