Harsh conditions forced by Israel on nuclear whistleblower

Israeli nuclear whistleblower returned to solitary confinement 21 June 2010, Amnesty International has accused the Israeli authorities of subjecting jailed nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by holding him in solitary confinement.The 56-year-old, who spent 18 years in prison for revealing details of the country’s nuclear arsenal to a UK newspaper in 1986, was sent back to jail for three months on 23 May on charges of contact with a foreign national, and almost immediately placed in solitary confinement. Amnesty International is calling for his immediate and unconditional release.”Mordechai Vanunu should not be in prison at all, let alone be held in solitary confinement in a unit intended for violent criminals,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East Programme…….Vanunu, a former technician at Israel’s nuclear plant near the southern town of Dimona, revealed details of the country’s nuclear arsenal to UK newspaper The Sunday Times.

Subsequently, he was abducted by Mossad agents in Italy on 30 September 1986 and secretly taken to Israel, where he was tried and sentenced to a prison term of 18 years, the first 11 years of which he spent in solitary confinement.

Since his release in 2004, the Israeli authorities have subjected Vanunu to police supervision under the terms of a draconian military order, which is renewed every six months…………..

The harsh conditions of the dangerous criminals unit in Ayalon Prison mean Vanunu can only leave his cell for one hour every day to walk in the prison courtyard.

Israeli nuclear whistleblower returned to solitary confinement

June 21, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons

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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 Americans, it seems, are very worried. The Israeli security services have to dance to their tune. 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.”

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.”

Please listen to Vanunu speak for himself in 2005, 2006, 2008 video interviews and learn all about his FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial @ http://www.wearewideawake.org
THE VANUNU SAGA 2005-2010!

Comment by eileen fleming | June 21, 2010 | Reply