Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu again under house arrest in Israel

Israeli nuclear whisteblower Vanunu under house arrest over TV interview, DW, 10 Sept 15
More than a decade since completing his 18-year jail-term for exposing details of Israel’s nuclear weapons, Mordechai Vanunu has been put under house arrest. His detention follows a TV interview regarding the disclosure. Army radio reported on Thursday that Vanunu had been arrested in the early hours of September 5, hours after privately owned Channel 2 broadcast an interview which authorities said violated the terms of his 2004 release.

The 60-year-old reportedly appeared in a Jerusalem court before he was confined to his home for seven days. The court also imposed a ban on Vanunu using the Internet.

A senior Israeli security official later confirmed Vanunu’s detention, telling DPA news agency that he was forbidden from sharing any classified information which he learned while working at the Israeli nuclear plant in Dimona, “even if he already published that information in the past.”

Nucelar whistleblower

Vanunu was first imprisoned in 1986 for exposing details behind Israel’s nuclear weapons plan to British newspaper “The Sunday Times.”

He spent more than 10 years of his sentence in solitary confinement.

In 2010, Vanunu was imprisoned for a second time after a court ruled that he had broken the terms of his release by talking to a foreigner……

Police have demanded to see last week’s interview in its entirety. Channel 2 has refused to hand over the unedited footage, however, on the grounds of the journalistic principle of the protection of sources. The television station is now taking the case to court.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it owns nuclear weapons – the only Middle East country to do so.

It has also refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons – or to allow international surveillance of the Dimona plant in the country’s south east. http://www.dw.com/en/israeli-nuclear-whisteblower-vanunu-under-house-arrest-over-tv-interview/a-18707561

September 11, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, Israel

1 Comment »

In 2005, this American writer was in east Jerusalem and I became a reporter after Vanunu told me:

“The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.’

“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.”
http://thearabdailynews.com/author/eileen-fleming/

VIEW “30 Minutes with Vanunu” did NOT go through Israeli Censors and was taped a few weeks after Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial began in 2006-

Comment by eileen fleming (@wearewideawake) | September 11, 2015 | Reply