Israel Should Release Mordechai Vanunu
On May 23, 2010, Mordechai Vanunu, whom Amnesty International calls a “prisoner of conscience,” was again sent to prison for a new three-month sentence, accused of violating the terms of his previous release. Previously, he had been in prison for 18 years, and spent the first 11 years in solitary confinement. According to Amnesty International, the restrictions placed on him were not parole, since Vanunu had already served his full term. “They arbitrarily limit his rights to freedom of movement, expression and association and are therefore in breach of international law,” said Amnesty International.
Vanunu is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, in 1986, revealed details of Israel’s nuclear program to the British press. While working as a technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, he became increasingly concerned about Israel’s nuclear weapons program and possible Israeli nuclear strategies in case of war. The information he revealed was published by the Sunday Times. In it he estimated that, at the time, Israel had produced more than 100 nuclear warheads.
He was afterwards lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was kidnapped by Israeli operatives. He was transported to Israel where he was tried on charges of treason and espionage, and condemned to 18 years in prison, in a trial conducted behind closed doors.
Although he was released from prison in 2004, he was subject to several restrictions on his speech and movement. He was arrested several times for violating those restrictions. According to Israeli officials, his last prison sentence is the result of his violating the conditions of his 2004 release from prison.
Acknowledgment of possession of nuclear weapons has considerable practical importance for Israel. By denying possession of such weapons, Israel avoids a US legal restriction of funding countries which have a rapid increase of weapons of mass destruction. Presently, Israel receives more than $3 billion a year in military and other aid from Washington.
Although Vanunu is widely reviled in Israel and by many Jews living overseas, he is vastly admired by peace loving people throughout the world. In 1987, he received the Right Livelihood award and in 2001 was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Tromso, in Norway. In 2005, he was awarded the Peace Prize of the Norwegian People.
Daniel Ellbersg has called him “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era.”
Despite his ordeal Vanunu remains defiant. In a poem he wrote entitled “Buried Alive,” in which he compares solitary confinement to living in a grave he wrote, “...Now iron gates, doors, grills, cement in this concrete world solidifying me. Only my mind, my spirit is free- free to remember why I am in prison but not prison for my spirit, they cannot chain my mind.”
Writing in Haaretz, Yossi Melman, its intelligence and military affairs correspondent, stated, “In a proud country that is celebrating its 60th anniversary, which purports to observe the judicial and moral norms of the enlightened world, one might have expected it to take courage and allow Mordechai Vanunu to be free, once and for all.”
Dr. César Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.
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Comments (1)
"If governments do not report the truth, and if the media does not report the truth, then all we can do is follow our consciences. Daniel Ellsberg did, the woman from Enron did, and I did."-Vanunu to me, June 2005
I began a series of interviews with Vanunu in 2005 and met with him on all 7 of my trips to Israel Palestine.
As a matter of conscience I have persistently petitioned Israeli officials to FREE VANUNU as well as the US government and The Media to help FREE Vanunu.
My most recent FAX:
July 13, 2010
Dear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Justice Prof. Yaakov Neeman, Attorney General Menahem Mazuz and President Obama,
Whereas in October 2009, President Obama agreed to persist in America’s four-decade-old ‘secret’ understanding that allows Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections,
Whereas in July 2010, President Obama pledged to sell Israel nuclear technology and other supplies, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
Whereas there is increasing international pressure for Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear arsenal,
Whereas Israel locked Mordechai Vanunu back up in solitary 23 May, 2010 for speaking to foreign media in 2004,
Whereas on 18 June 2010, Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East Programme stated:
“Mordechai Vanunu should not be in prison at all, let alone be held in solitary confinement in a unit intended for violent criminals. Mordechai Vanunu is a prisoner of conscience. The prison authorities might claim that he has been put in isolation to protect him from the risk of attack by other inmates, but if the Israeli government is really concerned for his safety it should release him without delay. His re-imprisonment is both harsh and unjustified. The restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu arbitrarily limit his rights to freedom of movement, expression and association and are therefore in breach of international law. They should be lifted and he should be allowed to start his life again as a free man.”
Whereas on 24 April 2004, Uri Avnery wrote:
“Everybody understands that Vanunu has no more secrets. What can a technician know after 18 years in jail, during which technology has advanced with giant steps?
“But gradually it becomes clear what the security establishment is really afraid of. Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the United States in the development of Israel’s nuclear armaments.
“This worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State Department for ‘arms control’, Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to Israel in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe damage to the mighty super-power…The world must be prevented by all available means from hearing, from the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full partners in Israel’s nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the world’s sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation.”
Whereas, in 2005, Vanunu told me:
“President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them. Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year.”
Whereas if Israel had allowed Vanunu the right to leave Israel in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, or 2009 and fade into history, instead of continuing to make it, I would not have written my third book:
"BEYOND NUCLEAR: Some of my Experiences of Mordechai Vanunu and the Holy Land: 2005-2010" which documents Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and acts of individual conscience vis-à-vis government policies, secret police operations and judicial decisions.
"BEYOND NUCLEAR" was also written as a matter of my destiny, as I was NOT a reporter until after I met Vanunu!
I established my website three weeks after my first of seven trips to Israel Palestine, compelled to do what THE MEDIA has failed at: report about life under military occupation and the reasons for the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land.
Whereas the longer Israel denies Vanunu his full freedom, the larger his legend and greater international compassion will grow; thus the time is NOW to FREE VANUNU!
Most sincerely and in solidarity with Micah 6:8: “What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be JUST! Be Merciful! And walk humbly with your Lord.”
Eileen Fleming, Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
Staff Member of Salem-news.com
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com and Dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming
FAXED TO:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
+972 2 566 4838
Minister of Justice Prof. Yaakov Neeman
+972 2 628 7757
Attorney General Menahem Mazuz
+972 2 530 3367
+972 2 627 4481
President Obama
202 456-2461
Posted by eileenfleming | July 20, 2010 12:40 PM