Earlier, The Washington Post decided not to disclose the name of the country for fear it would lead to deaths. In the reports, which revealed the Bahamas as one of the countries included in the Somalget program, the second was called "country x."

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist to whom Snowden first leaked the classified NSA documents and who works with The Intercept website, had said on Twitter the decision not to reveal the name was made because "we were very convinced this 1 would [lead to] deaths."

However, the WikiLeaks founder, who is currently under asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, insists that it is the US government who is behind the decision to conceal the name of the country.

"By denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimization, this act of censorship denies each individual in that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere," he said.

Assange is highly skeptical over the argument that the disclosure would lead to deadly consequences.

"To this day we are not aware of any evidence provided by any government agency that any of our eight million publications have resulted in harm to life," Assange claimed.

NJF/NJF