Director of human rights at Christian Solidarity International (CSI) and one of the world’s most pre-eminent anti-slavery campaigners of modern times, John Eibner, will attend the Second International Coptic Conference in Washington, USA.

|TOP|Mr Eibner joins other Christian and Muslim pro-democracy leaders from Egypt and the broader Middle East for the event, which takes place from 16 to 19 November in Washington.

The Second International Coptic Conference, entitled Democracy in Egypt for Muslims and Christians, will conclude with the Middle East Democratic Forum.

The gathering is jointly sponsored by Christian Solidarity International, Coalition for the Defence of Human Rights Jubilee Campaign and Copts-United.com, the U.S. Copts Association and the Ibn Khaldun Centre, Cairo.

Prominent figures at the event will include Conference chairman, Mr Adly A Youssef, CSI’s Rev. Hans Stueckelberger, the human rights Coptic-American activist, Michael Meunier, and Nina Shea, director of the Centre for Religious Freedom, part of Freedom House, and former Congressman, Walter Fauntroy.

Nadia Ghali and Michael Meunier from the Coptic Leadership are expected to address a Congressional Human Rights informal hearing at the U.S. Capitol, co-chaired by Congressmen Frank Wolf and Tom Lantos. Representatives from the State Department and The International Commission on Religious Freedom are also expected to give an address at the meeting.

The Copts, Egypt’s indigenous Christian population, have frequented the headlines lately in light of ongoing persecution, particularly bad in the last month with the approach of the third round of Egypt’s first judicially supervised parliamentary elections that began last week.