The original indictment included 22 different violations, Vanunu was charged with 19 and acquitted of four. He was acquitted of speaking to foreign nationals on the internet and via video and voice chats.
Vanunu was convicted just for speaking to non-Israeli media, and not on the content of the conversations that began the day he emerged from 18 years in prison-most all of it in solitary- for providing the photographic proof in 1986 of Israel’s underground WMD facility.
Nuclear experts hired by the London Sunday Times, interviewed Vanunu and determined that Israel had already manufactured upwards of 200 nuclear warheads by the time Vanunu last set foot in the Dimona, twenty-three years ago.
On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six months in jail for speaking to foreigners-who happened to be media-in 2004.
Two days before President Bush’s first trip to Israel, and a day before Vanunu’s appeal was to begin, Israel sentenced him to community service. But Israel does not recognize East Jerusalem as part of the community, and although it is the only neighborhood that Vanunu has lived since April 21, 2004, Israel denied Vanunu the right to serve the sentence in his neighborhood.
On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu’s sentence to three months more in jail, “In light of (Vanunu’s) ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy.”
On June 14, 2009 Mordechai Vanunu stated, “They renewed the restrictions to not speak to foreigners until November. I meet foreigners every day. I am talking with people every day. But I am not writing or announcing the appeal until after it happens. It was scheduled for January, then May 6th and June 18th. Now I am waiting for a new court date. The Central Commander of the General Army testified in court that it is OK if I speak in public as long as I do not talk about nuclear weapons.”
FREE VANUNU NOW! FREE GAZA PALESTINE NOW! JUSTICE FOR USS LIBERTY NOW!
Most Sincerely and in solidarity with Micah 6:8,
(your name and address)
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. -Article 19.UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.-Article 13
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan St.
Hakirya,
Jerusalem 91950
Israel
President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Only in Solidarity do “we have it in our power to begin the world again.”-Tom Paine
June 27, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Thanks for posting and I HOPE people print and mail!
“HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it.”-St. Augustine