The broadcast of excerpts from a diary kept by Mordechai Vanunu has touched off an angry controversy between civil libertarians and Israel Television over the right to privacy.
Vanunu is the former nuclear technician who is in custody for giving a British newspaper information about Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons capability. His lawyer, Amnon Zichroni, said Sunday that he might press charges against the Israel Broadcast Authority.
A television reporter said he found the diary in a suitcase in a building were Vanunu once lived. It covers the years from 1982-85 and reveals the writer’s attitudes toward women, family, philosophy, religion and finances.
The excerpts read on television Friday night described growing sympathy with the Arab cause. They depicted a troubled man who had difficulty communicating with others, who had a “strong urge to prove himself” and who feared he was being “followed.”
CALLED INVASION OF PRIVACY
The Civil Rights Association criticized the publicization of the diary as a “gross invasion of privacy.” According to the Association, “A man’s diary is one of his most intimate writings and cannot be publicized without his consent.” The Broadcast Authority was accused of violating a 1981 law for protection of privacy.
But the Authority maintained that Vanunu stands accused of serious offenses against the State and has lost his right to privacy. Uri Porat, Director General of the Broadcast Authority, said pains were taken not to publicize anything about Vanunu that is not already known and to resist “the temptation to score a great many journalistic scoops which were contained in the diary.”
The reporter who obtained it claimed a relative of Vanunu authorized its publication.
Zichroni, meanwhile, is on his way to London to prepare for the case. Vanunu was last seen in London on September 30. The government acknowledged only last week that he was “under lawful detention” in Israel and denied he had been kidnapped by Israeli agents. When and how he was brought to Israel remains unexplained.
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