Sample Letter to MSPs

 

 

Please sign Motion S3M-418 on Mordechai Vanunu

 

Dear ***********

I am writing to you as my representative in the Scottish Parliament to ask you to add your name to the above motion currently before MSPs asking for support for Mordechai Vanunu’s freedom to travel abroad and leave Israel. It has already gathered the signatures of 25 MSPs.

As I am sure you know, Vanunu, the elected Rector of Glasgow University has been sentenced to a fresh prison term by an Israeli court for “speaking to foreigners”. In 1986 he was kidnapped from Rome after revealing the secret existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal to the London Times. Following a trial in which he was not allowed to see much of the evidence against him, he was jailed for 18 years. For the first eleven of those eighteen years, he was kept in the harshest solitary confinement. Guards bringing his food were not allowed to talk to him or be seen by him: when he exercised in the prison yard, accompanying guards surrounded him with a portable structure which prevented him from seeing or being seen by anyone. This is widely seen as tantamount to torture.

Vanunu has given a number of interviews to Scottish newspapers, including two to Glasgow University publications, since his election as Rector and has talked with many Scots in Jerusalem.

Vanunu has been adopted as prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and is being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu. First Minister Alex Salmond has given his support to the identical motion when it was presented in the Westminster Parliament.

The reason given by the Israeli authorities for keeping Vanunu from leaving to travel abroad is that he still holds information about Israel’s nuclear programme that could pose a security threat. The idea is absurd:

He has nothing left to tell other than what he revealed to the Sunday Times

The passage of so much time would render his knowledge obsolete

Many people have met with him many times; he has had ample time to tell them any supposed ‘secrets’

Having served his sentence in full, Mordechai Vanunu should be allowed to leave Israel; I am asking you to support his human rights to travel freely by signing the above motion. You will also be supporting the rights of Glasgow University students to communicate with the man they elected as their Rector.