Let Vanunu Go: Action In Jerusalem

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:01

Mordechai Vanunu, Israel's nuclear whistle-blower, remains a prisoner of Israel one year after he was officially released from prison in Ashkelon. An Irish delegation from the Peace People spent the week in Israel with international friends from various other groups and organisations to be with the whistle-blower on the first anniversary of his freedom-but-not-freedom in Israel. The report below is based on an eye witness account without detailed notes.

The Irish visitors were: Kevin Cassidy (Chairperson), Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Ann Patterson, Regina O'Callaghan and Justin Morahan.

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:02

Mairead, Kevin, Ann and Justin visited the Deputy Head of Mission, Mr Philip Grant, at the Irish Embassy in Tel Aviv on the 19th (the Ambassador was on holidays) and had a long discussion and briefing about Mordechai over a lunch hosted by Mr Grant.

The Deputy Head was courteous, sympathetic and as helpful as he possibly could be. However on the crucial issues of Ireland providing asylum for Mordechai or giving him an Irish passport, he has no power to play any significant role.

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:04

Mairead Corrigan Maguire attended this Committee meeting and addressed members there. It was a highly charged atmosphere. Uri Avnery who also attended as a former member of the Knesset wrote afterwards:

"In the course of the session, Knesset members cursed each other in the language of fishmongers (by which I mean no offense to fishmongers). Two Likud members, Ronie Bar-On (who once served for several hours as Attorney General before being ignominiously removed) and Yehiel Hazan shouted that Vanunu had no human rights, since he was not a human being. It should be mentioned in all fairness that the chairman of the committee, Michael Eytan, also a Likud member, strongly condemned these utterances".

The Committee eventually agreed to meet again to discuss the Vanunu issue.

Ben on trumpet, penned in, across the road from Knesset

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:06

On Tuesday members of the team protested outside the Department of Justice, Jerusalem, where Ernest Rodker was arrested briefly and David Polden was accompanied to the police station to view the regulations. That evening they held a candle-light vigil and sang "A dream of Peace" and other songs in Paris Park, Jerusalem, near the HQ of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. (Paris Park is the officially recognised protest spot for actions protesting against the Prime Minister, and Women in Black hold weekly vigils there on the Palestinian question). On Wednesday a protest outside the Department of Defence in Tel Aviv passed without incident. All actions were accompanied by leafleting, postering and Ben Inman on his new trumpet.

Mordechai in sombre mood outside Department of Justice, Jerusalem just after being served with papers extending his sanctions for a period of 12 months (Ben at side)

Ernest under arrest, poster confiscated

Adeline O'Keeffe retrieves poster from Head of Police

David Polden escorted to police car "to view regulations at the police station"

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:08

During the week, several honours were bestowed on Mordechai including the Right Livelihood Award and the Yoko Ono Lennon Award. On 21st April he was formally inaugurated in Glasgow as Rector of Glasgow University.

Mordechai receiving one of many awards, Rayna Moss and Mairead also in picture

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:10

On Thursday, 21 April 2005 the international team travelled to Dimona nuclear reactor to protest against the renewal of restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu. Dimona is the location of Israel's nuclear reactor at which Mordechai worked and some of whose secrets he unlocked to the world nineteen years ago. Two minutes silence was observed in the scorching heat on the barren landscape facing Dimona's nuclear reactor Several speakers addressed the protestors, including Mairead Corrigan Maguire, (Ireland), Rayna Moss (Israel), Ryoko Noma (Hiroshima), Carmel Martin (London), Kathy Kelly (Chicago), Knesset member Issam Makhoul, Mati Shmuelov (Israeli poet)and Akiva Orr (Israel). Protestors scattered ashes on the site of their vigil within view of the Dimona reactor. Vanunu's poem "I am your Spy" was read by Justin Morahan in his new Irish translation, "Is Mise bhur Spiaire". Ben Inman provided music and The Raging Grannies (Israel) performed a number of animated songs of protest.

Section of crowd at Dimona

Mairead Corrigan Maguire speaking at Dimona

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:11

On Friday, 22 April, at a morning vigil at the Paris Park, protestors held portraits of Mordechai Vanunu and signs that read "We are all Mordechai Vanunu" and "Wherever we are, Vanunu Is" along with the names of the places from which the delegates had come. The vigil was followed by a slow procession to the Sharon HQ where an attempt to hand in or read a letter was prevented by Mossad, Ann Patterson acting as negotiator. Police escorted the delegation back to the Park where Justin read the signed letter publicly. It was later posted to Mr Sharon in the post tray at the College of St George.

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:13

On Friday evening, after a final meeting, Mordechai Vanunu thanked the international delegates for having come to Israel to be with him, one year after his official release. He thanked supporters everywhere and pledged that he would always oppose nuclear proliferation so that we would have a nuclear free world.

Left to right: Mairead, Cynthia Banas (Catholic Worker), Mordechai, Kathy Boylan (CW), Susannah York and Mary Eoloff

Issam, Mordechai and Ann

Justin, Mordechai, Susannah at work

by Justin Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:15

Several other actions were initiated over the week, including a vigil outside the Knesset during the Committee hearing on Vanunu for which the Knesset had been especially re-convened. Mordechai's adoptive parents, Nick and Mary Eoloff, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, English actress Susannah York, Rayna Moss, Issam Makhoul, and others gave several interviews and made impassioned statements during press conferences; Embassies were visited by delegates and new private contacts were made with sympathetic groups.

A final meeting organized and chaired by Kevin Cassidy, with Kathy Kelly (Voices in the Wilderness) as secretary, succeeded in reviewing the week's work and drawing up a list of possible future actions at home.

Over and over again, at the various Press Conferences, speakers called on Israel to release Mordechai Vanunu. Mairead Corrigan Maguire also called repeatedly on the Israeli Government to submit to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and to send a delegation to the 2005 NPT Review Conference in United Nations, N.Y., next month. The human Family, she said, is demanding a world without nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, and we wish to see not only a Middle East free of all w.m.d. but also America and the World. To this end we support the work of the 2005 Review Conference and place our trust in it to make the world safer for us all. Issam Makhoul told the parable of the chicken and the grain of wheat. (A man had the illusion that he was a grain of wheat and was afraid of chickens. After treatment, he no longer thought himself as such, but was still afraid of chickens. He explained to his psychiatrist that, while he knew he was not a grain of wheat, he wasn't certain that the chickens knew this). Issam called on Israel not to think of herself as a grain of wheat.

Press Conference: Mordechai and Mairead at right. Back right, Meir Vanunu taking picture

by Mary La Rosa - The Other Israel Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:16

One Year Later and Still Not Free
It is one year since Israeli Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was released from a cruel and barbarous imprisonment into a 1948 British Mandate that keeps him further imprisoned by a state that does not want him but does not wish for him to go free or live free.
For Full Links:

Other Israel Bulletin Board: http://www.geocities.com/toi_billboard/vanunu_poem.htm




Triumph of Spirit: Israeli Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu April 2005

Just before daybreak
I dream of the threat of Nuclear War.

I am with my mother's people
and a great noise rises
an ancient Toltecas song
that includes the voices of original people
living in every hemisphere
under threat under occupation
joined by the sound of those settlers
seeking harmony
and diverse community
who come to join us non violently.

In Dreamtime
we all rise up
in welcome of each other
this great unifying heartbeat
the prayer and rhythm of peace
our chorus:
Blessed Be Peace Be With You
Salaam and Shalom
We are a continuous song
We are a unifying heartbeat that pulses
against the oppression of nuclear warheads
and the repression of indigenous populations.
In struggle and above this great Samba
our hope floats and is bouyant
and is always lighter than oppression
and uranium depletion.

Stuck in between the Dreamtime and the reality
a few illegal settlements
are made into golf courses
and later the casinos come
and occupied people
have this newer occupation
as valets and house maids
in a decadent oasis
where kingpins rule
in cowboy hats
and the marshall's badge
is a star of david

las vegas in the gaza

This surreal landscape of a holy land
divided and redefined
West Bank and Hebron and Jerusalem
polluted into divisions and military zones.
Where the garbage is dumped onto your neighbor's property
and your neighbor's property is taken and used for a wall
Where shepherds tend sheep that are not endangered by wolves
but by humans who wish to poison them grazing on their own land
Where racism makes less of one child's life over another's
And where the man who tells the truth
about nuclear weapons still tells truth
but gets punished for it again and again and some more
while the kingpins deal on

Other prophets and entertainers have cried out from this wilderness:

born again zealots comics crooners
featured zionist shtick islamic one liners
all the darker humors ironies
cultural ethnicities exotic curiosities
of being christian muslim or jew
in the land of return for just a chosen few.
The settler show has been sold out;
likewise the bedouin rodeo.
Refuser pilot exhibition
and feminist burlesque
is by participation only
so make your reservations early
for the whistle blower review
starring prisoner of zion
baptised Mordechai Vanunu
who knew
after almost eighteen years
twelve in solitary
justice is ambiguous
truth is arbitrary

And because telling the truth
about weapons of mass destruction
is not the standard but the shame of kingpins
the man of conscience tour begins its revival:
Nuclear Secrets of the Eighties
The Golden Hits of Ashkelon
featuring Cruel and Unusual Punishments
Strong Will & Survival
"They could have my body
But my spirit I kept free"
This triumph of spirit
whistleblower and free man without liberty
who stands in righteous dignity
Thank you, Mordechai
for another year in captivity.

Tis of thee my people sing!

Mary La Rosa, April 13 2005



**********
It is one year since Israeli Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was released from a cruel and barbarous imprisonment into a 1948 British Mandate that keeps him further imprisoned by a state that does not want him but does not wish for him to go free or live free.

Israel charges that the nineteen year old "memories" of a technician under the influence of torture is more of a threat, than its present government's refusal to commit to anti nuclear proliferation.

While still so trapped, Mordechai continues to practice being free while exercising his rights as a free man the best he can.

For further information please contact:

http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/
http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk/

Send a message of support:

Mordechai Vanunu
c/o Cathedral Church of St. George
20 Nablus Road
PO Box 19122
Jerusalem 91191
Israel

www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/

by . Thu Apr 28, 2005 13:33

April 22, 2005
Jerusalem


Dear Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,

We, delegates from several countries gathered in Jerusalem for the anniversary of Mordechai Vanunu’s release, express our concern, disappointment, shock and disbelief at the recent decision to renew the sanctions on Mordechai Vanunu for another twelve months.

To us, Mordechai Vanunu is a hero of world peace and a voice of sanity and truth in a world increasingly threatened by the insanity of nuclear weapons.

Your courts found him guilty of espionage and treason and sentenced him to eighteen years in prison. The crime for which he was sentenced was revealing the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal - although 19 years later you officially tell the world that Israel has no nuclear arsenal at all. Mordechai Vanunu served his cruel sentence in Israeli prisons and last year, on the 21st of April, we were present at Ashkelon for his release.

We pass over his unlawful kidnapping in Rome and his unlawful return to Israel, shackled and drugged. We pass over his secret trial and conviction and the long period of solitary confinement you imposed on him, which shocked the world and created a new unflattering record for this type of inhumane and barbaric treatment of a human being.

These are all in the past and while they remain as stubborn facts that can never be erased we are concerned now only with the present.

Since his release last April, Mordechai Vanunu has been forbidden to enjoy two of the most basic rights of human beings: freedom of speech and freedom to travel. He has now received a new order not to talk about the subject of Dimona or nuclear weapons even if what he says has already been published. The spurious and specious argument has been made within Israel that "he has more secrets to tell." Outside of Israel, few believe this argument. Even within Israel, many Israelis do not believe it. All the information that he has, was published 19 years ago in the Sunday Times. Nuclear technology has moved on. It is clear that the restrictions placed on Mordechai Vanunu must not be for reasons of Israeli security but for reasons of revenge, anger or even malice.

Mordechai Vanunu, who today was inaugurated as Rector of Glasgow University and has received innumerable other honours from around the world, has said NO to these unjust and cruel sanctions. Outside and inside of Israel, most fair-minded people agree with him. It will not redound to the benefit of Israel if your government continues to play with the life, feelings and dignity of this human being.

We have resolved that while he is forbidden to speak, we will speak out openly and often on his behalf in our different countries around the world. While he is forbidden to travel, your country’s reputation with regard to human rights will continue to decline. We do not wish this on your country.

We join with other organizations, groups and individuals around the world in asking you with all the vehemence and power we can muster to do the big thing, the noble thing, the just and right thing and let Mordechai Vanunu go.

Somewhere it has been said, a prophet is honoured everywhere but in his own country. Mordechai Vanunu has tried to save the children of Israel from a nuclear disaster. Do not dishonour him. Give him his passport and let Mordechai Vanunu go.

With best personal wishes

(Signatures of delegation members)