Scottish University Rectors call for Vanunu’s release

Statement by four Scottish university Rectors on behalf of the fifth, October 2007: 

Of the five elected Rectors of Scottish universities, we four enjoy liberty of speech and movement: Mordechai Vanunu, the elected Rector of Glasgow University’s students, remains subject, however, to a ban on travelling within Israel/Palestine and further afield. An Israeli court has now sentenced Mordechai Vanunu to six months in prison for ‘speaking to foreigners’. Such an ominous charge would implicate many Scots, including journalists, in Vanunu’s further imprisonment.

Mark Ballard, Rector, Edinburgh University
Robin Harper, Rector, Aberdeen University
Craig Murray, Rector, Dundee University
Simon Pepper, Rector, St. Andrews University

Statement by four Scottish university Rectors on behalf of the fifth, October 2007:

“We join with Amnesty International, the Scottish First Minister and many others in the Scottish Parliament and around the world in demanding the release of Mordechai Vanunu as a prisoner of conscience.

Of the five elected Rectors of Scottish universities, we four enjoy liberty of speech and movement: Mordechai Vanunu, the elected Rector of Glasgow University’s students, remains subject, however, to a ban on travelling within Israel/Palestine and further afield. An Israeli court has now sentenced Mordechai Vanunu to six months in prison for ‘speaking to foreigners’. Such an ominous charge would implicate many Scots, including journalists, in Vanunu’s further imprisonment.

We urge the Israeli Government to release the man whom it kidnapped from a European capital and imprisoned for eighteen years, almost twelve suffered in solitary confinement. His ‘crime’ was to confirm, in a series of interviews to the London Times, the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Vanunu has acted throughout in support of international law and in opposition to aggressive wars and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and elsewhere.

We ask our elected representatives to sign motion S3M-418 for the liberty of Mordechai Vanunu currently before the Scottish Parliament. We ask Glasgow University authorities to make the strongest public representations to the Israeli authorities to secure Vanunu’s liberty.”

Mark Ballard, Rector, Edinburgh University
Robin Harper, Rector, Aberdeen University
Craig Murray, Rector, Dundee University
Simon Pepper, Rector, St. Andrews University