Brasilia, February 14 (RHC) -– Brazilian campaigners have gathered outside the Foreign Ministry building in the capital Brasilia to demand the government grant asylum to U.S. surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

On Thursday, the campaigners walked to the Foreign Ministry building while chanting slogans and carrying symbolic boxes of data. They handed in a one million names-strong petition, demanding Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff offer the U.S. whistleblower refugee. The Brazilian government had said it required a formal request from Snowden to grant asylum.

The former CIA employee leaked two top secret U.S. government spying programs under which the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

Last October, Rousseff canceled a visit to Washington after it was revealed that her cell phone was monitored by the US surveillance program, as were the state oil company Petrobras and Brazilian citizens.

Snowden is now in Russia after Moscow granted him asylum in August for one year.