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The Dublin-based organization Front Line: The International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders is issuing a new report this week on the situation of human rights defenders in the United States. Farouk's case is one of those discussed in the report, "Front Line USA: Threats, Attacks, Arrests and Harassment of Human Rights Defenders." There will be a press conference on Wednesday, June 9, 2004 in Washington, DC. The following is from Front Line's announcement: "The launch will begin at 9:15 am in Room 6 in the Senate side of the Capitol Building (SC-6) and breakfast will be available from 8:30 am. "The event is co-sponsored by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. "The Directors of Front Line and the RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights will each speak 4-5 minutes on the report. Professor David Cole of Georgetown University Law Center will introduce the report. Then, each of the defenders will discuss their particular experience for 2-3 minutes. When the defenders have finished there will be a period for press questions. "The Front Line report, written and researched by Jack Rendler and edited by Paul Hoffman, portrays the kinds of abuses that 12 US-based human rights defenders are currently facing. The report chronicles the ways that the defenders are threatened, intimidated, and abused as a direct consequence of their work to promote and protect fundamental human freedoms in the US - political, civil, economic, social and cultural. One of the eight defenders participating in the launch is a representative from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) based in southwest Florida; three of its members received the 2004 RFK Human Rights Award last November for their bravery in exposing several cases of modern day slavery in the US farm industry involving over 1,000 enslaved workers. The CIW website can be found at: http://www.ciw-online.org/tz_site-revision/home/home.html. The CIW representative will be joined by nine other defenders featured in the report: Farouk Abdel-Muhti, Carrie Dann, Brenda Henson, Cheri Honkala, Chokwe Lumumba, Enrique Morones, Ken Riley, Lynne Stewart, and Charles Tisdale. "Front Line was founded in Dublin in 2001 with the specific aim of protecting human rights defenders committed to working non-violently for the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Front Line protects them by addressing the needs that defenders have themselves identified, including networking, training and facilitating access to the thematic and country mechanisms of the UN and other regional bodies." FRONT LINE THE INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS Website: http://frontlinedefenders.org [Note: the location of the press conference may change. The Capitol is being used for the lying in state of former president Ronald Reagan, and it may be cordoned off. Please check the Front Line website for updates.] ========================================================= Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti PO Box 20587, Tompkins Square Station, New York, NY 10009 Phone: 212-674-9499 * Email freefarouk@yahoo.com Websites: www.freefarouk.org * freefarouk.netfirms.com ========================================================= |
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