Charley Allan was in Caracas when the two-day coup against the left-wing president, Hugo Chavez, took place in April last year. He has helped start up a solidarity group in London, organising workshops and screenings, dedicated to the message that this grass-roots democratic popular movement in Venezuela is under constant threat from the traditional enemies of progressive causes, and exploring what we can all do to help.
Valerie Coleman works in the Social Policy Department of Citizens Advice. Citizens Advice, through its national network of Citizens Advice Bureaux, helps people resolve their problems through advice and by lobbying policy makers for change.
Johann Hari is a former student at King's College, Cambridge. He is a regular contributor to the New Statesman and writes a regular column in The Independent. He is the author of God save the queen? (Icon Books 2002).
Leonie Newhouse works with refugees at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant.
Louise Pirouet has been involved with refugee concerns for many years in both Africa and Britain. She is a trustee of Asylum Aid, helps to run a group in Cambridge which works for safeguards for asylum seekers held at Oakington detention centre, and assists Kenyans and Ugandans appealing against refusal of asylum. She is the author of Whatever happened to asylum in Britain? (Berghahn Books 2001).
Patti Rundall is Policy Director of Baby Milk Action, a non-profit organisation which aims to end the avoidable suffering due to inappropriate infant feeding by securing independent, effective controls on the marketing of the baby feeding industry. She has been active for many years in campaigning for the rights of consumers and against the untrammelled power of multinational corporations.
Ruth Wyner was one of the "Cambridge Two" who were jailed in 1999 because some users of a daycentre for the homeless which they ran were trading drugs on the premises. She now campaigns for prison reform. She is the author of a forthcoming book, From the Inside (Aurum Press, May 2003).