Members of Iceland's Pirate Party have introduced a bill that would grant Edward Snowden Icelandic citizenship. This would protect him from extradition to the United States should he make it to the North Atlantic country and receive asylum there.
Snowden is currently stuck in a legal limbo at the transit center in Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport. The U.S. has revoked his American passport, making him largely unable to enter Russia or fly elsewhere. Snowden has made asylum requests to 21 countries, including Iceland, though none of his requests have been granted so far. Most countries require an asylum applicant to be in the country before asylum can be given.
The Snowden bill is largely a symbolic gesture: Iceland's parliament is about to go into recess and it's unlikely such a move would get majority approval.
"We wanted to do this earlier but citizenship is an extremely delicate issue when it's granted by parliament instead of granted through ordinary legal processes," wrote Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, one of the bill's sponsors, on his Facebook page.
"However we received confirmation yesterday evening that Mr. Snowden had requested asylum in Iceland, but he would undoubtedly be extradited from Iceland unless he were a citizen of Iceland."
While it may seem strange that Iceland would seemingly grant Snowden citizenship on a whim, a precedent exists in Cold War history: Iceland granted citizenship to American-born chess player Bobby Fischer in 2005. Fischer's American passport was revoked after he violated sanctions by playing a match in the former Yugoslavia in 1992.
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Image via Kay Nietfeld/AFP/Getty Images
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