Vanunu released from solitary, still confined in Israel
August 8, 2010
The Guardian reports:
Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli whistleblower who spent 18 years in jail for exposing Israel’s nuclear capabilities was released today after completing a further three-month sentence.
Vanunu, 56, a former technician at a secret nuclear plant near the desert town of Dimona, was convicted after handing over details of Israel’s nuclear arsenal to a British newspaper in 1986.
The revelations led to the belief that Israel held a sizeable nuclear arsenal – a claim Israel has neither confirmed nor denied under its policy of “ambiguity”.
Vanunu served much of his 18-year sentence in solitary confinement.
His latest three-month sentence came after the Moroccan-born whistleblower was convicted of holding unauthorised meetings with foreigners – banned under the conditions of his release – including journalists and his Norwegian girlfriend in 2007…
Vanunu’s movements have been subject to strict conditions, including a ban on leaving Israel…
Speaking before his sentence in May and in English – Vanunu refuses to speak Hebrew in public – he said:
“Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons but no one is talking about it. The world doesn’t want nuclear weapons – not in Israel, not in the Middle East and not anywhere in the world.”
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Eileen Fleming adds:
In 1995, from Ashkelon Prison, Mordechai Vanunu noted:
“A radioactive cloud consumed rubbed out Hiroshima…A live nuclear test sentenced you. A nuclear laboratory…children women trees animals in and under a nuclear mushroom…burning… burned…flattened to ground radioactive ash-Hiroshima…Nuclear weapons gamblers win against you…Hollywood doesn’t know you – you are not a Jewish Holocaust.”
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