Episcopal Press and News

EPF to Issue Award Honoring Mordechai Vanunu

Episcopal News Service. April 3, 1997 [97-1727L]

(ENS) The Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) recently announced that Mordechai Vanunu will be the first recipient of a new award named in his honor. The Mordechai Vanunu Award for Sacrifice and Moral Witness in the Struggle for Peace with Justice was established by the EPF in October 1996 as a way to honor Vanunu and to focus on his imprisonment. The award will be presented at the EPF dinner during the 72nd General Convention of the Episcopal Church in July of this year. Convicted of espionage and treason at a closed-door trial in Israel, Mordechai Vanunu received an 18-year sentence for exposing his government's secret nuclear weapons program, where he once worked as a technician. He has been held in solitary confinement for more than ten years. His story was published by the London Sunday Times in 1986 and confirmed that Israel had become a major nuclear weapons power, with 100 to 200 warheads of advanced design. During his March visit to the Middle East, Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning presented a letter to Israeli president Ezer Weizman requesting access to Vanunu so that he could deliver a letter from EPF notifying him of the award. No member of Browning's party was permitted contact with Vanunu.