Justice for the Morong 43

The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers supports the Alliance for the ‘Justice for the Morong 43! Justice for all victims of human rights violations! Alliance’. The Morong 43 are the 43 health workers in the Philippines who in 2010 accused of being members of the New People's Army, who were illegally arrested following an illegal search. The Morong 43 suffered both physical and psychological torture while in military custody and were denied access to lawyers for several days.

Click here to read our letter of support for the Alliance and its endeavours to hold the state to account and fight for the human rights of all in the Philippines.

‘Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper’ by Jim Duffy

‘Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper’

The words are George Orwell’s, but they could just as easily have been those of 22 year-old Cait Reilly. In the week of 9th January 2012, Cait filed judicial review proceedings challenging the sort of State approach to maximising employment that Orwell prophesised. Her stand against what she argues to be an unfair, unpaid compulsory labour scheme seemed all the braver by the time The Daily Mail had finished with her. For them, this was a young, middle-class upstart who considered herself too good for Poundland.

The reality is much different. Cait is one of a quarter of a million unemployed people who will, by the end of the year, have found themselves on the end of the Coalition’s drive to ‘Get Britain Working’ and required to carry out between two weeks and six months of unpaid work under one of a plethora of complex schemes elaborated administratively and without Parliamentary scrutiny.

Cait graduated from the University of Birmingham in July 2010 intent on forging a career in museums. In the meantime, she claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), sought paid work and was eventually able through the now-defunct ‘Future Jobs Fund’ to obtain valuable work experience at The Pen Room, a Birmingham museum. When her six-month paid placement ended, Cait decided to continue on a voluntary basis and once again claimed JSA while she looked for paid work. She is conscious of the need for extensive work experience in her chosen field.

In October 2011, her Jobcentre Plus adviser informed her of an ‘opportunity’ to attend an open day at which retail jobs would be available. She attended having been told that it could lead to a week’s training followed by a guaranteed job interview. When she discovered at the open day that what was on offer involved six weeks of training, Cait decided that this would take her away from her important voluntary work for too long. Her adviser’s tone changed, and what was previously described as an opportunity had suddenly hardened into a ‘mandatory’ requirement. If Cait failed to attend, her JSA would be reduced or withdrawn.

Cait then spent a week in a classroom being told by a training company how to dress, greet people and become more employable. There then followed two weeks at Poundland where no training or direction was offered and, crucially, no pay. Cait, who already has retail experience, was simply told to sweep floors and to stack shelves. Neither the ‘guaranteed’ job interview or the promised City & Guilds retail certificate ever materialised. Meanwhile, many supermarket employees apparently found in the run-up to Christmas that overtime work was suddenly hard to come by as a result of an influx of unpaid jobseekers.

It was not until Cait instructed us to bring a legal action that she found that she had been involved in a ‘sector-based work academy’, as opposed to ‘work experience’, or the ‘work programme’, or a ‘Mandatory Work Activity Scheme’, or the ‘Community Action Programme’ (CAP). She then realised she was perhaps one of the lucky ones – Public Interest Lawyers acts for another individual who has been required to undertake a full six months’ unpaid work under the CAP.

With youth unemployment figures at their highest level in 17 years, the Government faces a monumental challenge in getting people back to work. In addressing that crisis, it has chosen to import the same model of ‘Workfare’ attempted previously in the United States. Before setting up the array of schemes that Public Interest Lawyers is now challenging, the Department for Work and Pensions commissioned expert research that examined Workfare in the USA, Canada and Australia. Two of its main conclusions ought to have put the brakes on the political temptation to get the proles working, pay or no pay:

‘There is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers’; and ‘Workfare is least effective in getting people into jobs in weak labour markets where unemployment is high.’

Yet, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has created the UK’s own Workfare programme in the weakest labour market since 1996, without the required prescription of what the schemes entail or those to whom they apply, either within the Regulations or any published policy. As such, he has arguably exceeded his powers under the Jobseekers Act 1995, granting near omnipotence to the Jobcentre Plus adviser, who is henceforth empowered to determine what is good for the Jobseeker, even if it means what is arguably ‘forced or compulsory labour’ under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Notwithstanding the lack of clear criteria or guidance, what we do know is that these schemes are not for the maligned ‘somethingfor- nothing’ generation of unemployed not complying with their jobseeking conditions – the DWP is clear that such individuals must continue to receive the appropriate sanction of JSA withdrawal and are ineligible for these schemes. Yet, no one seems to have told the Employment Minister this: ‘It is a nonsense to suggest we should just be leaving them on benefits without making a real effort to find work.’

In fact, Cait would welcome paid work at Poundland or anywhere else that would afford her the luxury of living off more than £53 per week. Her experience, however, suggests that coercive schemes that require people to carry out work over which they have no choice and for which they are not remunerated is unlikely to bring an end to their unemployment.

Cait Reilly hopes to make the Government think again and work with young unemployed people, who perhaps ought to be seen as victims rather than culprits of the financial crisis. An approach that instead empowers and equips them, tailored to draw upon their skills and plug their skills gaps, might ensure that they not only enter the paid job market but stay there.

Jim Duffy is a Solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers

Haiti cholera victims sue the United Nations by Bill Bowring

Mario Joseph, of Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) is Haiti’s best-known human rights defender and is the lead advocate in the cholera case against the UN. He is longstanding friend of Haldane, through his work for many years on the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), of which Haldane is a founding member. He is supported by Brian Concannon of the US-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), which in November 2011 filed a Petition for Relief with the UN’s Claims Unit in Haiti on behalf of more than 5,000 victims.

This unprecedented petition against the UN has its roots in centuries of anti colonial struggle. Haiti has a proud history of revolution, and was the scene of the first decisive overthrow of slavery. C. L. R. James wrote of the ‘Black Jacobins’, part of the French revolutionary movement of the 1780s. The Haitian Revolution of 1791 to 1794, led by Toussaint Louverture, culminated in the Haitian Constitution of 1801, which proclaimed ‘There cannot exist slaves [in Saint-Domingue], servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French.’ The Haitian revolution was crushed by France within two years and Toussaint died in captivity. However, from 1804 until US occupation in the 20th century, Haiti was an independent black state, posing a very significant threat to all colonial and slave regimes. In 1817 Simón Bolívar received soldiers, weapons and financial assistance from black Haiti.

In 1904 the US imperialist President Theodore Roosevelt established the ‘Roosevelt corollary’ to the 1823 Monroe doctrine, itself a response to the successful liberation struggles against Spain and Portugal. This asserted the right of the United States to intervene in Latin America in cases of ‘flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American Nation’. On this basis, Haiti was occupied by the USA from 1915 to 1934; the departing US forces established the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and laid the basis for the brutal hereditary dictatorship of the Duvaliers, ‘Papa Doc’ and ‘Bébé Doc’. Bébé fell from power in 1986.

The former priest and continuing threat to US hegemony, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected President in 1990, ousted in a coup in 1991, and returned to power in 1994. He left power according to the Constitution at the end of his term in 1996 and was re-elected with 92 per cent of the vote in 2000. In 2004, in what was termed a ‘new coup-d’etat or new kidnapping’, US forces removed Aristide from Haiti, and engineered a compliant vote in the UN Security Council.

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has been there ever since. China Miéville (2008) has suggested that ‘… multilateral UN sanctioned imperialism is more of a threat to justice and emancipation than its unilateralist Rumsfeldian sibling’.

On 12th January 2010, Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake. The International Red Cross estimated that about three million people were affected. The Haitian Government reported that over 316,000 people had been identified as dead, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated one million were made homeless. An outbreak of cholera began in October 2010. Five hundred and twenty five thousand Haitians contracted the disease and 7,025 have died since then.

MINUSTAH personnel deployed from Nepal brought the vibrio cholerae bacteria to Haiti, as has been established by numerous DNA tests and epidemiological studies, including those carried out by the UN itself. Although Nepal has endemic cholera, the UN did not test or treat the Nepalese peacekeepers for cholera prior to their deployment to Mirebalais. There they lived on a base with a ‘haphazard’ and ‘inadequate’ sewage system that dumped all waste into an unfenced pit. It was entirely foreseeable that human faeces containing cholera bacteria could contaminate a tributary that runs just metres from the base into the Artibonite River. Epidemiologists calculated from the record speed at which the outbreak had spread that a full cubic metre of cholera-ridden water was dumped into the Artibonite and moved downstream like a plume, infecting the Haitian families that drink, bathe, play and do
their laundry in the river.

In March 2011, Bill Clinton, by then UN Special Envoy to Haiti, acknowledged that MINUSTAH was the ‘proximate cause’ of the outbreak.

The Petition for Relief seeks:

a) the clean water and sanitation infrastructure necessary to control the epidemic;

b) compensation for victims who have lost family members or were ill from cholera; and

c) a public apology from the UN.

MINUSTAH’s operations in Haiti are governed by a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which gives the UN and MINUSTAH broad immunities from civil or criminal actions in the Haitian courts. To balance this immunity, the SOFA requires the establishment of an independent Standing Claims Commission to hear claims and compensate victims who have been injured in the course of the UN’s operations. Despite this requirement, no Commission has been established during the seven years MINUSTAH has operated in Haiti. In fact, no Standing Claims Commission has ever been established in over 60 years of UN peacekeeping, even though most SOFAs provide for such commissions.

The UN has confirmed receipt of the petition, and its official response is that it is ‘studying’ it. Liability has so far been denied, despite the overwhelming evidence. However in a Security Council meeting on 8th March 2012, France acknowledged the damage cholera had done to Haitians and to the reputation of the UN, declaring, ‘We can regret this, but we cannot ignore it.’ Pakistan called for a UN apology, adding that the UN must do ‘whatever is necessary to make this situation right.’

Unofficially, the UN responded to the petition several months after it was filed, by creating a ‘coalition force’ including the World Health Organization, Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), UNICEF, and others. These organisations have announced a ‘One Team Against Cholera’ initiative to eradicate cholera through investments in comprehensive water and sanitation.

Haldane is part of the international campaign of solidarity, with the UK Haiti Support Group, to demand that the UN admits its liability to the cholera victims of Haiti, and provides effective and speedy relief as demanded by the petition.

Bill Bowring is Haldane’s International Secretary

Another door shut? by Maryam Masalha

The government has axed the independent appeal panel on school exclusions. Maryam Masalha asks: has another door shut for children seeking justice?

The independent appeal panel, the body which currently hears challenges to school exclusions, is being axed. Provisions in the Education Act 2011 will see the appeal panel replaced with a ‘review panel,’ affecting the majority of schools in England. The move simultaneously strips the panel it of its power to reinstate pupils whom it finds to have been wrongly excluded from school, and is a further blow to a process which already shows worrying patterns of inequality.

At present, black children are statistically three times as likely to be excluded from school as white children. Children in care – many of them black – are eight times as likely to face exclusion. Children with special educational needs are also at much greater risk. The disproportionately high rate of exclusion among black pupils in schools, coupled with current political fervour for academies, shown to exclude twice as many pupils as Statefunded schools, raise serious concerns about the UK education system. Curtailing thepowers of the independent appeal panel, a channel through which young people can argue their case, will only worsen a system which is already reaching crisis point.

Independent appeal panels are currently made up of a panel of three to five members of the public who hear exclusion cases and have the power to reinstate pupils if they feel that the head teacher’s original decision was flawed. The new review panels will have much more limited powers, and will only be able to:

(a) uphold the decision of the responsible body,

(b) recommend that the responsible body reconsiders the matter, or

(c) if it considers that the decision of the responsible body was flawed when considered in the light of the principles applicable on an application for judicial review, quash the decision of the responsible body and direct the responsible body to reconsider the matter.’

The panel will no longer be able to direct reinstatement. At most, it can order the decision-making body to ‘reconsider the matter,’ but only where there has been a breach of judicial review principles.

This immediately raises two problems. First, it is likely that the process of reconsideration will simply provide an opportunity for schools to vindicate themselves, rather than genuinely re-evaluate the situation and reinstate a pupil where a poor decision was originally made. Second, thereference to ‘judicial review’ principles in the Act raises serious concerns that the panel, whose members are often totally without legal training, will not be able to decide on potentially complex public law issues relating to the fairness or otherwise of a permanent exclusion. The majority of young people appearing before the panel have no legal representation whatsoever, and are therefore very unlikely to invoke the public law principles which appear in the Act.

Exclusion appeals can be seen to mirror the legal system and its flaws in many respects; the process seems fair, but imbalances in resources and ability to navigate the system result in only a small portion of exclusions even reaching the appeal stage in the first place. Consequently, the stripping back of this quasilegal appeal process is based on the falseassumption that vast amounts of exclusion decisions are being undermined in a systematic and widespread ‘interference’ with a head teacher’s right to manage their school. Similar arguments are often used to justify the ongoing assault on legal protection for workers and individuals. Why, for example, should a former employee take their employer to court following a potentially unfair dismissal when this interferes with an employer’s right to manage their business? The question assumes that decisions made by people in power or authority are always correct and should never be challenged, despite the impact this may have on a individual’s life.
The independent appeal panel is not an alternative to a system which minimises exclusion by investing in schools and communities, but it is an opportunity for life-changing decisions to be scrutinised.

Gerry German is the director of the Communities Empowerment Network, an organisation which advocates on behalf of children who have been excluded from mainstream education. He is concerned about the use of permanent exclusion in schools, and thinks that more must be done to challenge the current regime. ‘I would like to see the Equality and Human Rights Commission undertaking selective casework and formal investigations aimed at exposing individual and institutional discrimination,’ he said. ‘Law enforcement is the key to bringing about change.’

Exclusion from school can be the catalyst for a host of further problems, from poor employment prospects to the breakdown of relationships with family and friends and involvement in criminal activity. The changes to the appeal panel do nothing to address the underlying causes of school exclusion. They may possibly lead to further injustices occurring in a system which is already plagued by inequality. The long term consequences of these decisions remain to be seen.

Since the time of this article being written, Gerry German has sadly passed away.

Maryam Masalha has worked as a volunteer for the Communities Empowerment Network, an advocacy charity which assists children and young people who have been excluded from mainstream education.

Socialist Lawer No.61 Editorial

Since the last issue, The Haldane Society has organised one of its most successfulconferences in its history: Defending Human Rights Defenders held jointly with Amnesty International and European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights. 150 people heard from human rights defenders from Belarus, Chechnya, Dagestan, Colombia, Palestine, the Philippines and Turkey. This issue contains a short report and pictures can be viewed on our website. A longer report will be available in the autumn.

Our comrades from overseas are an inspiration to us. Lawyers, trade unionists, journalists and even judges put their lives at risk by standing up for human rights. We were sad that Aleh Volchek, a lawyer in Belarus, was unable to join us because he had been detained a month before the conference and his passport had been confiscated. In the Philippines, the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers is challenging impunity by bringing a private prosecution against retired Army Maj. Gen.Jovito Palparan, accusing him of complicity in disappearances. The retired General is evading the court process. In Turkey, lawyers representing Kurdish or left-wing prisoners are frequently arrested. Perhaps the most striking observation was from the Palestinian comrades: since they came from East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza, our invitation to visit London meant that the three of them could meet each other. In Palestine, Israel prevents travel between those areas. In Colombia, several leading members of the National Movement for the Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) have been detained by the State, and, when they eventually face a trial, are at risk of false accusations.

We could only invite representatives from a few countries and are conscious that human rights defenders are at risk in many countries. In this issue, Brian Richardson describes political persecution in Zimbabwe: the prosecution of members of the Movement for Democratic Change.

The Haldane Society was pleased to provide a platform to bring some of those well-known and less well-known struggles together. We are committed to providing practical solidarity to our comrades, with calls for urgent action, statements in support and denunciations of repressive measures. We will work towards holding future conferences and facilitating electronic networks and communication. The issue of impunity was a recurrent theme: how to hold governments, and corporations, responsible for their crimes by due process of law.

The passing of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, despite the record number of Government defeats in the House of Lords, means that the changes to legal aid come into force next April. The lobbying campaign against LASPO was one of the most impressive and effective I have ever seen and, crucially, turned the issue from lawyers' interests, as claimed by the Government, to an issue about welfare rights and access to justice.

How can we now stop the decimation of legal aid, the NHS, welfare benefits and the other pillars of the welfare state? Clever lawyering is one way forward. There are complex provisions in the Act permitting the Lord Chancellor to increase the scope of legal aid. But our interests, and those of the public, are identical to publicsector workers. Legal aid lawyers are effectively public-sector workers employed in the private sector. As the minimum salary for trainee solicitors is outrageously abolished, the profession will become more and more distant from the public we serve.

Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), spoke with Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, and John Hendy QC at a meeting jointly organised with the Institute for Employment Rights. Mark is also interviewed in this magazine. He tells us that his members' fight to defend their pension rights is certainly an industrial dispute but it's also ‘clearly a political dispute’. We will be joining the TUC and trade unions on their march for ‘A future that works’ on 20th October 2012. Watch out for The Haldane Society banner.

We are very sad to report the death of Lord Bill Wedderburn, pre-eminent labour and commercial lawyer of his generation and a committed Vice-President of The HaldaneSociety. His life will be remembered at a memorial service on Tuesday 3rd July 2012, 6pm at the London School of Economics and the Haldane Society will be in attendance. We send our condolences to his family and comrades.

Liz Davies, chair of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

1st October 2012: Public Meeting: Future of Legal Advice Services

Access to Justice and other supporting organisations (including the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers) invite you to a Public Meeting on the future of Legal Advice Services, taking place on 1st October 2012 in Manchester.

Haldane 2012-13 Human Rights Lecture Series

Each year the Haldane Society arranges its popular Human Rights Lecture Series, on a diverse range of subjects, with important speakers from across the legal landscape.

All of the events in the 2012-13 series take place at The College of Law on Store Street, London, and begin at 6.30pm.  Lectures last about an hour and a half to two hours.

All lectures are free. CPD available for practitioners, £10.

11 October 2012: David Renton & Dave Smith

“Struck Out: Why employment tribunals fail workers and what can be done”

David Renton (barrister) and Dave Smith (Blacklist Support Group) will speak on the why employment workers, and how workers can respond through collective action outside the legal system.

15 November 2012: Michael Mansfield (followed by AGM)

“Palestine, Putney and Planet”

Michael Mansfield will be speaking on a diverse range of subjects including Palestine, the Putney Debates from the Civil War, and eco-cide. 

Haldane Society AGM

The lecture will be followed by Haldane's AGM, open to all members of the Society.

13 December 2012: Owen Jones & Lois Austin (PCS)

“The Injustice of Privatisation”

Owen Jones (author of Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class) and a comrade from the PCS trade union will be speaking on the subject of privatisation, particularly as it affects the legal system.

17 January 2013: Michael Chessum (NUS/NCAFC) & Adam Gearey (Birkbeck School of Law)

“Higher Education for Sale”

Michael Chessum and Adam Gearey will be speaking on the privatisation of higher education.

21 February 2013: Tessa Gregory (Public Interest Lawyers) & Andy Greene (Disabled People Against the Cuts)

“Back to Work Schemes, ATOS, Forced Labour: the Fight in the Courts”

We will hear from a solicitor from Public Interest Lawyers and one of their clients about the government's controversial back to work schemes, their interrelationships with the concept of forced labour, and the human rights aspect of this subject.

14 March 2013: Jamila Duncan-Bosu (solicitor Anti-Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit) & Kate Roberts, (community advocate Kalayaan and campaigner for domestic migrant workers)

“Trafficking: Law and Politics”

We will hear from speakers involved in the fight against human-trafficking.

Joint Seminar with CAMPACC and CASE

21 November 2012: Justice and Security Bill: Covering up State Crimes

Wednesday 21 November 6.30-8.30pm at Garden Court Chambers, 57-60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A

Chair:
Louise Christian, civil liberties and human rights lawyer; Vice-President of The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.

Speakers:
Dinah Rose QC, Blackstone Chambers, who specialises in human rights and public law
Richard Norton-Taylor, journalist and writer on defence and security, The Guardian
Clare Algar, Executive Director, Reprieve

Open justice is a centuries-old principle of British law. The right to a fair trial is a feature of the common law and is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. These values of fairness and transparency are now under threat in the Justice and Security Bill, which will introduce closed courts and secret evidence for any case which the government says relates to ‘national security’.  Such restrictions threaten the very fabric of the civil legal system.

With increasing allegations of British government collusion in torture abroad over the past decade, the government has gone to great lengths to withhold evidence relating to such claims. Under the guise of growing ‘national security’ concerns in an increasingly global context, the government has also introduced a number of measures to protect the interests of the executive and its agencies.

Applied at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission since 1997, closed courts have failed to ensure fairness and proportionality in proceedings, evidenced by the sizeable related case law. 

So. why extend ‘secret evidence’? Who stands to gain? If this Bill is enacted, where will it leave the legal system and the judiciary?

For background information: The Justice and Security Bill: An Affront to Open Justice by Aisha Maniar http://onesmallwindow.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/justice-and-security-bill-an-affront-to-open-justice/ 

All Welcome.  For further information contact:
Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
Web: www.campacc.org.uk,
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk
Tel.: 020 7586 5892

Lord Bill Wedderburn

The Haldane Society is sad to announce the death of our Vice-President, Lord Bill Wedderburn, QC. Bill Wedderburn was an eminent labour lawyer, whose books included The Worker and the Law and other publications pioneering the concept of workers' rights. He worked at the University of Cambridge and was Cassell Professor of Commercial Law at the London School of Economics. He was appointed a life peer in 1977. The name Baron Wedderburn of Charlton reflected his football allegiance. He was a Distinguished Patron of the British Humanist Society. He was a committed supporter of the Haldane Society and, less than two years ago, appeared with Jim Mortimer and John Hendy QC "in conversation", jointly organised with the Institute for Employment Rights and held at the TUC. We appreciated the physical effort he made to join us then and the mental acerbity and wit that had not diminished. Our thoughts are with his family and his friends.

Obituary in Guardian, Monday 12th March

National Lawyers' Guild (US) calls on U.S. to end arm sales to Bahrain, members abused in anti-democracy crackdown

Just one day after announcing their presence in Bahrain as human rights observers, National Lawyers Guild (NLG) members Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath were arrested at a protest in the capital city Manama and deported back to the United States. Their mission came amid renewed street protests on the one year anniversary of the country's Arab Spring uprising. Their ordeal illustrates the U.S.-backed monarchy's harsh response to its people's continued calls for democracy.

Ms. Sainath, who works as a civil rights attorney in New York, said, "Given the Bahraini regime's treatment of American lawyers one can only imagine the torture and human rights abuses Bahraini democracy activists routinely face - and why the regime is trying to hide it."
Bahraini police arrested Ms. Sainath and Ms. Arraf February 11 near the Pearl Roundabout, the site of last year's Manama protests which were modeled after the revolutionary gatherings in Egypt's Tahrir Square. Authorities confiscated the pair's phones and camera equipment, and deported them the following morning, forcing them to endure the seven-hour flight to London with their hands cuffed behind their backs. During the flight, security officers hit Ms. Sainath on the head three times and told her that if she wanted to go the bathroom she "could go to the bathroom on herself."
"The treatment our members suffered solely for documenting human rights abuse is contemptible and it demands further investigation," said NLG Executive Director Heidi Boghosian. "Further, we call on the U.S. government to take immediate steps to protect the rights of all Bahrainis by suspending all arms sales to the Bahraini government."
The two women traveled to the country as part of the Witness Bahrain initiative, heeding a call by Bahraini democracy activists for international observers. Six more Witness Bahrain activists now face deportation after their arrests earlier today.
Now in its 75th year, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

www.nlg.org

Contact:
Nathan Tempey,
Communications Coordinator
communications@nlg.org
(212) 679-5100, ext. 15
New York