...and I'm going too. This event may be turning up in the documentary. Constitutional scholar and author (Enemy Aliens) will be there.

Due to Reagan's passing we may not get to be in the Capitol building as planned; check the Front Line website for details.

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
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.]