Their logic is that the US government behaves like a communist regime, doing whatever it can to punish and silence real dissent (like Edward Snowden and Julian

Their logic is that the US government behaves like a communist regime, doing whatever it can to punish and silence real dissent (like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange), so they assumed it might just be using this as an excuse to punish a newspaper that often hosts anti-US-government content.