FREE VANUNU! Israel's official policy has always been that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. But the Israeli security establishment began to secretly develop an extensive nuclear weapons program in the late fifties. For over three decades, its existence has been concealed from the Israeli people and parliament. At the same time, Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty or open the Dimona "nuclear research centre" to international inspection. During his years at the Dimona centre, from 1976-1985, Vanunu was recruited to work in the secret underground bomb factory located at the facility. Moved by his growing realization of the destructive potential of the weapons he was helping to construct, Vanunu took extensive notes and photographs of the clandestine plant. Intent on alerting the world to the nuclear threat looming over the Middle East, Vanunu presented his evidence to the Sunday Times of London in 1986. Reviewing his data, experts concluded that Israel had stockpiled up to 200 nuclear warheads. On September 30, 1986, only a few days before his revelations were published by the Sunday Times, Vanunu was kidnapped in Rome by Israeli agents and secretly brought to Israel. In a closed Jerusalem courtroom, he was charged with "treason" and "espionage." Gagged, yet definat, Vanunu revealed the details of his kidnapping to journalists by writing on his hand, and pressing it against the window of the police van that was transporting him back to prison. Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in prison. For the past eleven years, he has been kept in solitary confinement. Amnesty International has described his prison conditions as "cruel, inhuman and degrading." And yet, against all odds, he has persevered in his struggle to draw attention to the threat posed by Israel's nuclear arsenal to all the peoples of the Middle East. Throughout the world, thousands of people have rallied to Vanunu's defence. Amnesty International, The American Federation of Scientists, the European Parliament, 1995 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Joseph Rotblat, Pax Christi, Noam Chomsky, Harold Pinter, Peter Gabriel and many, many other groups and individuals have called on the Israeli government to end its inhuman treatment of Mordechai Vanunu and release him from prison. |
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