ノルウェー政府がバヌヌ氏の受け入れに向けて動き出す（2008年4月14日）

ノルウェー政府がバヌヌ氏を受け入れるために動き出しました。2008年5月に招くことを目指しています。バヌヌ氏を閉じ込めたままにしておきたいイスラエル政府の拒絶が予想されますが、フレドリックさんが言っているように大きなステップだと言えます。イスラエルとの外交関係の悪化を恐れてか、今まで政府レベルでバヌヌ氏受け入れを表明した国家はありませんでした。

ちなみに、フレドリック・ヘッファメールさんは2004年4月にイスラエル・アシュケロン刑務所前で出所するバヌヌ氏を迎えた際にもお会いしましたが、本当に情熱の人という印象でした。ちなみにフレデリック・ヘッファメール編　大庭里美・阿部純子訳『あなたの手で平和を！　31のメッセージ』（日本評論社）という本もあり、この中で彼やバヌヌ氏、ダライラマ、ネルソン・マンデラ、ハワード・ジンなどのメッセージが紹介されています。

以下は原文です。


PRESS RELEASE:

ISRAELI WHISTLEBLOWER WELCOME TO NORWAY

After hectic political discussions within the three-party Norwegian
coalition cabinet, the Minister of Immigration, Bjarne Hakon Hanssen,
(Labor, Norway´s biggest Party) said last Friday that Mordechai Vanunu is
welcome to Norway: " If he gets a job offer here, he will of course get a
permit to stay and work in Norway". Vanunu is the nuclear whistleblower who
has been Israel´s hostage since his kidnap by Mossad agents from London in
1986.

Confronted with the fact that Vanunu is banned from leaving Israel by
government decree, a member of the cabinet, Aslaug Haga, Center Party leader
and former deputy Foreign Minister, admitted that a major diplomatic effort
towards Israel will be needed. Then, on Sunday night, a meeting of the
National Committee of the third member party of the coalition cabinet, the
Socialist Left Party, decided to invite Vanunu to come to Norway in May this
year.

- This welcome to Norway does not solve Vanunu´s problem, but is a major
step forward, says Fredrik S. Heffermehl, a Norwegian, for the International
Vanunu Committee. Up to now our efforts to protect Vanunu´s elementary
human rights have received only cold shoulders. After 21 1/2 years the
brutal inhumanity against Vanunu has to stop. Since a secret deterrent is
ineffective, Vanunu did Israel a service by documenting the nuclear weapons
program. Israel´s illtreatment of him is totally meaningless, unfair and
unacceptable from a state laying claim to be a democracy under the rule of
law, Heffermehl says.

Vanunu has been exposed to severe inhumanity and human rights violations for
21 1/2 years, first the kidnap, then a secret trial, then 11 1/2 years in
strict isolation, and then - at the end of his full sentence - he was not
free, but subjected to additional punishment, bans on travel and talk, a
grave violation of his basic freedoms under international treaties. Vanunu
has done more for a nuclear free world than most of us, and has suffered
more for his principled action against an illegal weapon, our

The political breakthrough for Vanunu, with the three-party coalition
government, followed a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, where
Vidar Ystad, one of Norway´s finest political journalists uncovered that
since 2005 The Norwegian Immigration Authority has held the view that Vanunu
fulfilled all requirements for political asylum in Norway and, further, that
the former conservative government of Kjell Magne Bondevik had broken the
law when its Minister of Immigration, Erna Solberg, presentleader of the
Conservative Party, interfered to stop the Immigration Authority from
granting asylum to Vanunu.


A former leader of the Conservative party, Kare Willoch, has been adamant
that Norway must grant asylum to Vanunu, and a former leader of Labor, now
President of Parliament, Thorbjorn Jagland, stated in 2005 that Norway´s
Mid-East diplomacy should not bar the country from speaking up for Vanunu.

Fredrik S. Heffermehl, the International Vanunu Committee

For further information: fredpax@online.no,
phone: +47 2244 8003 (cell phone: +47 917 44 783).

www.vanunu.org, ("Updates") gives access to a legal briefs by US lawyers, my
report on the decision against Vanunu in Israel´s Supreme Court etc.

In Norwewgian: Check www.google.no - with search word: Vanunu

Fredrik S. Heffermehl