2006 Shortlist - Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award

Beatrice Mtetwa: Zimbabwe (Award Recipient)

Beatrice Mtetwa is a prominent media and human rights lawyer who works to defend and protect journalists in Zimbabwe who have been detained and harassed, regardless of regular threats to her personal safety. Most recently Mtetwa secured the release of journalists Toby Harnden and Julian Simmonds who had been charged with working without accreditation following their critical reporting of the presidential elections.

Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship: Chechnya

The RCFS monitors and reports on human rights abuses and “disappearances” in Chechnya by publishing the newspaper Pravozashchita, regarded as one of the few remaining sources of independent news about Chechnya, despite threats of closure from Russian authorities. In February 2006 Director Stanislav Dmitriyevsky was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and four years’ probation for inciting ethnic hatred after printing statements from Chechen separatist leaders calling for peace talks.


Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Studies: Nepal

CEHURDES is a Kathmandu-based group of lawyers, journalists and activists monitoring freedom of expression and working to protect human rights. It publishes several research documents to educate and increase support for those committed to free expression, including the annual Nepal Report. The work of CEHURDES has been particularly important in the face of the severe repression across the country since King Gyanendra seized absolute power on 1 February 2005.


Aktham Naisse: Syria

Aktham Naisse is the founder and president of the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria. He has been harassed, threatened, arrested, imprisoned and tortured for his nationwide campaigns for political reform and civil liberties and his criticisms of the ruling Ba’ath party. In 2004 he was charged with disseminating false information and “opposing the objectives of the revolution”, but thanks to international pressure, he was acquitted in June 2005.

Keir Starmer: UK

In February 2005 Keir Starmer, a barrister committed to defending human and civil rights, successfully represented the “McLibel pair”, Helen Steel and David Morris, before the European Court. It was a landmark case for freedom of expression in this country as it secured the right for defendants of libel cases to receive legal aid. Last year Starmer also led a team that gained a Lords ruling that evidence obtained by torture cannot be used against terror suspects in the UK.