Seek Justice, Rescue the Oppressed Reagan Demas Tuesday, May 22, 2007 7:30pm, Beckman Institute Auditorium, Caltech This event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are required.

Biography

Reagan Demas serves as the Director of Operations, Africa for International Justice Mission. IJM is an international human rights agency that rescues victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery and oppression. Based on referrals from relief and development agencies around the world, IJM conducts professional investigations of abuses and mobilizes intervention on behalf of the victims.

Mr. Demas received his B.A. with Distinction from Stanford University and spent a semester studying international relations and theology at Oxford University. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, serving on the Harvard Human Rights Journal and working as a Harvard Teaching Fellow in Economics. Mr. Demas served thereafter as a judicial clerk on the Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. He conducted and oversaw corporate internal investigations in a variety of countries and worked alongside government entities in domestic and international criminal and civil investigations. Mr. Demas' prior legal experience includes service with the Department of Justice, Criminal Antitrust Division, the United States Attorneys Office in Boston, Massachusetts, and work with a human rights monitoring group in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Mr. Demas currently directs IJM's operations in Africa, developing casework strategies and advocating with local and national authorities. He also partners with United States government officials and an assortment of non-governmental organizations to further the work of IJM in Africa. His work in Africa supports the enforcement of an array of national laws and international legal principles on the continent and has helped rescue victims from a variety of injustices, including illegal detention, unprosecuted sexual assault, police abuse, and property rights violations.

International Justice Mission is headquartered in Washington, DC, and was founded by Gary Haugen in 1997. As a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice, Haugen was put on loan to the United Nations to direct their investigation into the Rwandan genocide. The atrocities he witnessed there prompted him to found IJM. Haugen is a prominent speaker and the author of "Good News About Injustice" and "Terrify No More." Haugen and the work of IJM have been featured by the "Today Show", "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Dateline NBC", FOX News, MSNBC, CNN, National Public Radio, Forbes Magazine and The New York Times.

For more information about International Justice Mission, go to the Green Dot website: http://www.ijm.org/.