The decision by Israel’s supreme court to jail for three months nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu - who has already served a prison sentence after revealing information to the Sunday Times - for meeting a foreign national, has been condemned as an outrage by the NUJ.
Vanunu has been convicted of a ‘violation’ of the restrictions imposed on him since his release in 2004 after 18 years behind bars. Vanunu was jailed in 1986 for disclosing the inner workings of Israel's Dimona nuclear plant to the Sunday Times.
The NUJ made Mordechai Vanunu a Member of Honour in 2004, recognising his suffering in the cause of freedom of information at the hands of the Israeli authorities.
NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said: “While protesting against this sentence in the strongest possible terms, the NUJ believes that the conditions imposed on Mordechai following his release have arbitrarily limited his rights to freedom of movement, expression and association and are therefore in breach of international law.”
The NUJ is writing to Israel’s ambassador in London, Ron Prosor, urging him to put pressure on the Israeli authorities not to implement the prison sentence and to withdraw all the draconian conditions imposed on Vanunu.
Hi and THANKS for using the photo of Vanunu that I shot last June and btw-Vanunu shot the photo of me that you see.
ReplyDeleteMy May 13, 2010 email to: press@amnesty.org
Dear Amnesty International,
Thank you for your PRESS RELEASE of May 12, 2010 regarding Mordechai Vanunu.
I offer you a few more facts:
The restrictions that have held Vanunu captive come from the Emergency Defense Regulations which were implemented by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II.
Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel's Minister Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations as "unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany."
Israel kidnapped Vanunu in 1986, but Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "No one shall he subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention", including abduction of a person by agents of one state to another state.
Vanunu was charged with and convicted of treason and espionage.
Section 99 of the Israeli Penal Code, treason is defined as "an act calculated to assist (an enemy) in time of war...delivering information with the intention that it fall into the hands of the enemy."
Section 113 defines aggravated espionage as "deliver(ing) any secret information without being authorized to do so and with intent to impair the security of the state" and a sub-clause provides for a penalty of seven years for the unauthorized collection, preparation, recording or holding of secret information; if this is done with intent to impair the security of the state and then, the penalty is increased to 15 years.
Vanunu served 18 years in jail and has been subjected to 24/7 surveillance ever since 21 April 2004.
Frank Barnaby, the Nuclear Physicist, who was hired by the London Sunday Times to interrogate Vanunu, testified at his closed door trial, "I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times...I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israel's secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically."
But, Vanunu was rendered defenseless during that closed door trial when the court ruled that his motivations were not ideological and they refused to allow Vanunu's own statements regarding his intentions to even be considered in his defense.
During my interviews with Vanunu, he informed me that...
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