The Society's Involvement in the Defense of Human Rights

The history of the Society's involvement in the defense of human rights, a history of which the Society can be proud, will be summarized; the summary will include illustrative specific APS human rights defense actions in illustrative specific cases. As will be emphasized, the aforesaid involvement has been primarily through the activities of the APS Committee on International Freedom of Scientists (CIFS). It is noteworthy--and one of the reasons the Society can be proud--that CIFS is charged with ``monitoring concerns regarding human rights for scientists,'' not solely for physicists, and that CIFS indeed has sought to protect the human rights of nonphysicists.