Amnesty International is asking people to donate their out of office replies over the Christmas and New Year period, to help get a pardon for Edward Snowden.

The campaign is an initiative from Amnesty International Sweden and has been developed with advertising agency Garbergs. It asks participants to replace their ordinary voice message and out of office email reply with a personal message from Snowden, who is facing charges in the US for revealing mass scale global surveillance of private communications.

The replacement details the Snowden case with a message from Snowden explaining how every communication people make is watched and recorded. There are also messages that can be posted as a Facebook update, an email footer, a blog entry, or a tweet.

Amnesty is urging Obama to pardon Snowden before he leaves office on 20th January. The messages are available on a dedicated campaign site: snowdenoutofoffice.com, where there is also a petition launched in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Pardon Snowden campaign, demanding his immediate pardon.

Johanna Westeson, discrimination officer at Amnesty International. said: