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Letter: Israel's cruelty to Vanunu

Sir: The imminent visit by President Ezer Weizman of Israel is surely marred by his government's continuing imprisonment of Mordechai Vanunu, now in his 11th year of solitary confinement.

Vanunu's "crime" was to tell the Sunday Times of the secret stockpile of Israeli nuclear weapons manufactured at Dimona nuclear research centre, where he had been a technician. His revelation was an act of conscience, for no reward, intended to allow the public in Israel and throughout the world an opportunity to debate the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

To hold anyone for over a decade in solitary confinement in a small, windowless cell is against all civilised standards and cannot be justified on security or any other ground. This treatment has rightly been condemned by Amnesty International as cruel, inhuman and degrading.

In October last year, Professor Joseph Rotblat, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, appealed personally to President Weizman to show clemency to Vanunu, but to no avail. Now there is another opportunity for us to make known our concern for Vanunu's well-being. We call on politicians and members of the public to join with us in this humanitarian appeal for the immediate release of Mordechai Vanunu.

PETER BENENSON

PETER PRICE

ANDREW WILSKI

BRUCE KENT

JAKOB VON UEXKULL

Trustees for the Campaign to Free Vanunu

London SE1

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