By EILEEN FLEMING
Among the invited speakers for Amnesty Internationals Protecting Whistleblowers Conference on Tuesday, June 17th are Kathleen McClellan who works for the US Government Accountability Project, Nancy Hollander lead counsel for Chelsea Manning on appeal, Frank La Rue UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and Israels Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu who has also been asked to address UK Parliament on June 18th.
Will an empty chair symbolize the absence of Mordechai Vanunu?
Most likely YES, if Israel continues to deny Vanunu his human rights and a definite YES to the Legend of Vanunu Growing!
The Establishment of Israels statehood was contingent upon upholding the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION of HUMAN RIGHTS:
Article 13-2 affirms Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 19 enshrines:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
On 13 June 2013, Amnesty International UK posted a report by Billy Briggs who wrote: [SundayTimes-IsraeliNuclearWeapons]
On September 30, 1986, Vanunu was lured to Rome by a femme fatale called Cindy, who turned out to be an Israeli secret agent. Vanunu was kidnapped and drugged before being shipped to Israel, where he found guilty of espionage and treason; the Sunday Times had printed its article on October 5 under the headline: Revealed: the secrets of Israels nuclear arsenal.
Israel put up a wall of silence. Vanunu famously made contact with the media by writing details of his abduction on the palm of his left hand, which he held up to the window for waiting photographers as he was driven from court.
This reporter responded to Briggs blog with the first and at this moment ONLY comment:
On 31 May and for the 10th year since Vanunu was freed Israel again renewed the restrictions denying him the right to leave the state.
Vanunu responded on his YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nSOlG6Wpr8
Although Vanunu deactivated his Facebook account in May 2012, the Cause FREE Mordechai Vanunu continued on-and although the Cause was hacked the name changed to TNT: Telling Nuclear Truths and we are over 18,000 members dedicated to HELP FREE VANUNU @
http://www.causes.com/VANUNU
eileenfleming 1 years ago
Important to know that a year later that Cause has grown to 21,359 Vanunu supporters and as of this writing there are also 5,468 LIKES for a FREE Vanunu at FACEBOOK
Although legend has it that Vanunu fell into a honey trap the truth is the opportunity for sex already existed in London as Cindy and Vanunu both had private rooms.
On 26 March 2006, after I ran out of tape for what became 30 Minutes With Vanunu [all my questions to Vanunu were taken from the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION of HUMAN RIGHTS] I asked Vanunu:
What were you thinking when you took off with Cindy?
Vanunu looked me directly in the eyes and maintained eye contact as he immediately replied:
No, it wasnt like THAT!
A tabloid paper published a story with some of the photos of the Dimona I had taken.
They never contacted me for my side of the story but they published my photo with a bad report; lots of lies.
I knew I was in danger and I wasnt sure if the Times would still print my story. I thought I would just leave London with her for a few days. We went to movies and museums. I trusted her.- Chapter 12: BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunus FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010
Also, after I ran out of tape Vanunu told me:
Many journalists come here to the American Colony, from CNN and NY Times. They all want to cover my story, but their EDITORS say no
CNN wants to interview me; but they say they cant do it because they dont want problems with the Israeli censor. BBC is doing the same thing.
Sixty Minutes from the United States from the beginning they wanted to do a program, but because of the censor situation they decide not to do it. Also big media from Germany, France, Italy, Japan. None of them wants problems with the Israelis.
Important to know that I was NOT a reporter until AFTER I met Vanunu in 2005 and that we taped 30 Minutes with Vanunu just a few weeks after his historic Freedom of SPEECH Trial began in the only democracy in the Middle East 30 Minutes with Vanunu Part 1
I remember asking: why not stay quiet for a period in the hope that Israel might let you leave? His reply was this: They will never stop me thinking or speaking about what I believe in. Freedom of speech is part of being a human being. If you are not free to speak then you are not a human being. I contacted Vanunu again via email with questions for this article, but at time of writing, no reply had come.
On 10 July 2012, Vanunu emailed me: Hi. You can continue to act and do for my freedom as much as you can-no one can stop you. Freedom NOW!!! vmjc.
A Little More of my continuing to act for Vanunus FREEDOM by documenting more History in the Legend of vmjc/Vanunu Mordechai John Crossman:
In 1986, Israel kidnapped Vanunu from Rome but Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: No one shall he subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention including abduction of a person by agents of one state to another state.
According to Section 99 of the Israeli Penal Code, treason is defined as an act calculated to assist (an enemy) in time of war delivering information with the intention that it fall into the hands of the enemy.
Vanunu gave away his photos to the London Sunday Times because Israels political leaders have consistently lied about Israels nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy and he wanted to prevent a nuclear holocaust.
Section 113 defines aggravated espionage as deliver(ing) any secret information without being authorized to do so and with intent to impair the security of the state and a sub-clause provides for a penalty of seven years for the unauthorized collection, preparation, recording or holding of secret information; if this is done with intent to impair the security of the state and then, the penalty is increased to 15 years.
Vanunu got 18 years behind bars and was also rendered defenseless when the court ruled that his motivations were not ideological and they refused to even allow Vanunus statements regarding his intentions to be considered in his defense!
A total of 1,200 pages of transcript of Vanunus 1986 closed-door trial have been released.
Defense witness and the Sunday Times journalist who broke Vanunus story, Peter Hounam stated, We did not pay him money, but only covered his expenses Money did not motivate him.
Sunday Times journalist Wendy Robbins wrote, Mordechai never asked for nor received a single penny for his information he blurted out the whole tale without first setting out any financial preconditions. Mordechai got nothing out of the whole episode. He never sold Israels secrets-he told them.
Just prior to Israel kidnapping Vanunu he spent three days with Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby, who had been employed by the London Sunday Times to vet his story. [Barnabybookcover]
Barnaby concurred that Israel had manufactured upwards of 200 nuclear warheads by 1985 and he also testified at Vanunus closed-door trial:
I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times.
I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israels secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on.
He seemed to me to be acting ideologically. Israels political leaders have, he said, consistently lied about Israels nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy.
The knowledge that Vanunu had about Israels nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today.
He left Dimona in October 1985 and the design of todays Israeli nuclear weapons will have been considerably changed since then. Modern nuclear weapons bear little relationship to those of the mid-1980.
Most important for Americans to know is that I became a reporter in 2005, after Vanunu stuck me with this truth:
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. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago.
Back then,the Dimona descended seven floors underground.
In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.
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.
Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for 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.
On October 4, 2010, the International League for Human Rights in Germany announced Vanunu was awarded the 2010 Carl-von-Ossietzky-Medal.
An international campaign was launched to assure he be at the Award Ceremony, in Berlin to receive it on December 12, 2010; but the ceremony was renamed a protest because on October 11, 2010, Vanunus Supreme Court appeal seeking to lift the restrictions that have denied him the right to leave Israel was denied;
YOU can help protect the Legend of Vanunu too by signing and sharing the Petition to World MEDIA and Israel: We are not free until Vanunu is FREE: