イスラエルから成人養子を連れ出す計画が頓挫
米国ミネソタ州セントポールに住んでいるエオロフさん御夫妻は
モルデハイ・バヌヌ氏と1997年に養子縁組をしており、彼は21日の
釈放後、そちらへの移住を希望しています。
ただ、彼らにとって最悪の知らせが入った旨のニュースです。
バヌヌ氏はイスラエル国境や占領地域から300メートル以内、
外国の大使館から100メートル以内に入ってはならないとのこと。
また、電話やインターネットも使えないかもしれないとの内容です。
これが18年の刑を終えて釈放された人間に対する仕打ちになるの
でしょうか?
全訳をお送りできず申し訳ないのですが、原文を以下、貼り付けます。
=======================================================
Last update: April 12, 2004 at 12:15 AM
Plan to take adult son out of Israel hits
snag
Chao Xiong
Star Tribune
Published April 12, 2004
Mary and Nick Eoloff on Saturday received
the worst news that eager
parents could expect -- their adoptive son
can't come home with them
to St. Paul. He is barred from leaving his
resident country of Israel
and can't even go within 300 meters of its
borders.
The Eoloffs were set to leave this morning
on a flight bound for Tel
Aviv to visit Mordechai Vanunu, a grown man
and prison inmate they
adopted in an effort to bring him to the
United States. The spare
bedroom in their St. Paul condo is ready
for him, but the retired
couple, both in their 70s, are beside themselves
because he won't be
coming home with them.
"We're not even going to make plans
until we get there," Mary Eoloff
said Sunday.
Vanunu, 49, is in prison for treason and
leaking sensitive
information about nuclear weapons. His story
has become an
international rallying point for some anti-nuclear
activists.
He will be freed April 21 from a high-security
Israeli prison after
serving an 18-year sentence. Vanunu, a Moroccan-born
Jew who
converted to Christianity, was a technician
at Israel's secret Dimona
nuclear plant.
Believing that Israelis deserved to know
about their country's stash
of nuclear weapons, he leaked photos from
inside the plant to the
London Sunday Times in 1986. From that information,
experts
determined that Israel possessed the sixth-largest
nuclear arsenal in
the world.
The Eoloffs, self-described "radical
Catholics," adopted Vanunu seven
years ago. They learned this weekend that
Vanunu's application for a
passport has been denied by the Israeli Security
Services. After he
leaves prison, he will be prohibited from
leaving the country, and he
can't go within 100 meters of any foreign
embassy or within 300
meters of the country's border or occupied
territories. Vanunu may
also be prohibited from using the telephone
and Internet, said Jack
Cohen-Joppa, of Tuscon, Ariz., associate
coordinator of the U.S.
Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu.
Vanunu had planned to return with the Eoloffs
to St. Paul and live a
"quiet, normal life," Mary said.
Unwed and childless, Vanunu wanted to apply
the knowledge of American
history he learned during his nearly 12 years
of solitary confinement
in a windowless, 6-by-9 cell and teach at
a university, she said.
After exchanging letters, the Eoloffs --
Nick, a retired editor of
law books at West Publishing, and Mary, briefly
a teacher and chiefly
a housewife -- adopted Vanunu in 1997 under
the erroneous assumption
that he would become a U.S. citizen. Citizenship
is granted only to
adopted children under 16. The couple has
visited him about twice a
year since then.
"I think it's a publicity stunt to adopt
him in that manner," said
Julie Swiler, spokeswoman for the regional
Jewish Community Relations
Council. "He gave away government secrets
that put his country and
the citizens of his country at risk. That's
a very serious offense. I
can't imagine anyone would have this campaign
for an American spy who
put our safety at risk."
The campaign to free Vanunu has taken on
global proportions, with
vigils planned for the Israeli Embassy in
Washington, D.C., the day
of his release. Other vigils are set around
that date in San
Francisco, Boston, Toronto, London, Dublin
and Sydney, among others.
Vanunu's supporters champion his nuclear-weapons
consciousness. He
has received an award from the Nuclear-Free
Future Society of Munich,
Germany and was nominated for the 2003 Nobel
Peace Prize.
But Swiler contends that more serious nuclear-disarmament
issues like
those involving Iran and Pakistan should
take precedent over whether
Vanunu can come to the United States.
"This effort on the part of the Eoloffs
is strange and surprising,
really," she said.
The Eoloffs last visited Vanunu in November.
Mary said that Vanunu
was "full of jubilation" at the
time but that she can only imagine
how he must feel now. Their mail correspondence
can take months to
arrive, so they haven't heard from him since
rumors of a possible
passport denial and other restrictions were
recently confirmed in the
Israeli news media.
Mary said she and her husband plan to stay
in Israel until April 26,
but they will stay longer if necessary. The
longtime peace activists
solicited the help of U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum,
D-Minn., who relayed
the request to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
There's been no
response.
"It's so unknown for us right now,"
Mary said.
Vanunu is estranged from most of his siblings
and his biological
parents; his father is an Orthodox Jewish
rabbi. Cohen-Joppa said
Vanunu has one brother in Israel who will
likely help him settle if
he is unable to come to St. Paul. Vanunu
had planned to stay in St.
Paul for a while before relocating to one
of the coasts, Mary said.
Vanunu has a week to appeal the restrictions
and the Association for
Civil Rights in Israel is prepared to help
him, Cohen-Joppa said.
"We are at the point of mobilizing public
protest of the Israeli
government's actions," Cohen-Joppa said.
Chao Xiong is at cxiong@startribune.com.
c Copyright 2004 Star Tribune. All rights
reserved.