Model Letter to Glasgow Councillors to vote for Vanunu

Please vote at the full Council meeting on Feb 21st for the Motion to support Mordechai Vanunu


Dear ___________

I am writing to you as a Glasgow City Councillor for my ward to ask you to support the motion which will go to the next full Council meeting asking for support for Mordechai Vanunu’s freedom to travel abroad and leave Israel. It has already gathered majority support in the Scottish Parliament, with support from all parties represented there.

even though Vanunu is the elected Rector of Glasgow University, he 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.

I look forward to your response to this email and hope you will be confirming that you will support the choice of Glasgow University's students and vote for the motion, and the human rights of Amnesty's prisoner of conscience, Mordechai Vanunu

Yours sincerely

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