Embassy Charges Dropped; Leafletters Head to Holocaust Museum

The day before their January 18 trial, "incommoding" charges against nine people arrested on September 28 at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. were dropped. At the end of a three-day gathering marking the fourteenth anniversary of Mordechai Vanunu's kidnapping and imprisonment, the activists had approached the embassy fence to ask authorities for the immediate release of the nuclear whistleblower, and for the abolition of nuclear weapons. They were arrested after refusing to leave embassy property.

No longer due in court on January 18, a handful of Vanunu supporters instead went to the Holocaust Museum that day, with a banner reading "Free Mordechai Vanunu". Breaking off into pairs, they stood at several areas outside the museum, handing out a specially prepared leaflet about Mordechai Vanunu and Israel's nuclear weapons. The leaflet spoke of Vanunu as a prophet of this age, warning of a holocaust that threatens to consume all life on earth.