JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FILES SUIT AGAINST THIRTY INDIVIDUALS WHO BLOCKADED A NEW JERSEY CLINIC WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Justice Department filed suit today against 30 individuals under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) to end a continuing pattern of blockades at a women's clinic in Englewood, New Jersey. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, charged the 30 individuals with participating in at least one of three blockades within the past eight months at the Metropolitan Medical Associates (MMA) clinic. According to the complaint, the defendants either chained themselves together or laid down in front of the clinic's entrance in order to prevent patients and staff from gaining access. "Congress passed the clinic entrance law to protect every women's constitutional right to reproductive health services," said Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Isabelle Katz Pinzler. "Today's case underscores our commitment to enforce the law." On three separate occasions the defendants allegedly blockaded the entrances to the clinic. On August 7, 1996 five defendants chained themselves together at the neck, and blocked all interior entrances to the waiting room and office space, so that patients were only able to access the clinic by using the fire escape stairway. On January 18, 1997, 12 individuals, and on March 15, 19 individuals again allegedly blockaded MMA by sitting and laying down in front of the clinic's entrances. According to the Department, at each blockade the defendants refused to leave MMA after being asked to do so by police, in defiance of a 1974 New Jersey state court injunction that restricts protests at MMA to a location across the street from the clinic. During the March blockade, defendants had to be physically carried away from MMA's front door. Today's suit is the thirteenth civil action filed by the Justice Department under FACE, which was signed by President Clinton in May of 1994. The law forbids anyone from using force, threat of force or physical obstruction to injure, intimidate or interfere with a person obtaining or providing reproductive health services. It allows the Justice Department to ask a court to prevent people from blocking clinics and harming reproductive health care providers. The complaint asks the court to issue an order preventing the defendants from obstructing access at MMA, entering the clinic's property, or coming within 60 feet of the clinic. The 60-foot "buffer zone" requested by the Justice Department is intended to keep defendants across the street from MMA. The Department is also seeking monetary damages of $5000 per violation from each defendant. # # #