The partner of the Guardian journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to expose US surveillance tactics was detained for almost nine hours Sunday, under British anti-terror legislation.
Metropolitan Police confirmed that David Miranda, husband of journalist Glenn Greenwald, was held up as he passed through London's Heathrow Airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro from Berlin.
The Brazilian government has expressed 'grave concern' about Miranda being 'held incommunicado' by the British authorities at the airport.
Former NSA contractor Snowden received asylum in Russia on August 1, after spending more than five weeks stranded in a Moscow airport avoiding extradition to the United States.
The Guardian has published this picture of its journalist Glenn Greenwald (right) and his partner David Miranda (left), who was held by UK authorities at Heathrow airport. Photograph: Janine Gibson
Glenn Greenwald's partner detained for 9 hours. Assange detained for 985 days. Had enough? Join http://t.co/uM5ZbeaGai
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 18, 2013
Grenwald responds
Glenn Grenwald has written in The Guardian about David Miranda's arrest, insisting he will not be intimidated by authorities. In it he reports that his partner was held for the maximum 9 hours under Schedule 7 of the UK's Terrorism Act of 2000.
Grenwald writes "We spent all day - as every hour passed - worried that he would be arrested and charged under a terrorism statute. This was obviously designed to send a message of intimidation to those of us working journalistically on reporting on the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ." But he insists he won't be deterred and he says "Beyond that, every time the US and UK governments show their true character to the world - when they prevent the Bolivian President's plane from flying safely home, when they threaten journalists with prosecution, when they engage in behavior like what they did today - all they do is helpfully underscore why it's so dangerous to allow them to exercise vast, unchecked spying power in the dark."
The journalist, who hadn't been able to speak to his husband at the time of writing because authorities took his mobile and his laptop, said he had been given a message through lawyers that David was in good spirits and feeling
