McDonald's Corporation v Steel & Morris[1997] EWHC 366 (QB), known as "the McLibel case", was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris over a factsheet critical of the company. Each of two hearings in English courts found some of the leaflet's contested claims to be libellous and others to be true.
Dame Vanessa Redgrave is an English actress. Throughout her career spanning over six decades, she has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and an Olivier Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She has also received various honorary awards, including the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and an induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Michelle D. Douglas is a Canadian human rights activist who launched a landmark legal challenge in the Federal Court of Canada against the military's discriminatory policies against LGBTQ+ service members. Douglas herself served as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1986 to 1989. She was honourably discharged from the military in 1989 under the military's discriminating "LGBT Purge".
Pamela Yates is an American documentary filmmaker and human rights activist. She has directed films about war crimes, racism, and genocide in the United States and Latin America, often with emphasis on the legal responses.
Amber Laura Heard is an American actress. She had her first leading role in the horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006), and went on to star in films such as The Ward (2010), Drive Angry (2011), and London Fields (2018). She has also had supporting roles in films including Pineapple Express (2008), Never Back Down (2008), The Joneses (2009), The Rum Diary (2011), Paranoia (2013), Machete Kills (2013), 3 Days to Kill (2014), Magic Mike XXL (2015), and The Danish Girl (2015). From 2017 to 2023, Heard played Mera in the DC Extended Universe, including the films Justice League (2017), Aquaman (2018), and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023). She has also acted in television series such as The CW's teen drama Hidden Palms (2007) and the Paramount+ fantasy series The Stand (2020–2021).
Katharine "Katie" Redford is an American human rights lawyer and activist who is credited with spearheading a movement to hold international companies accountable for overseas abuse in their home court jurisdictions, and in doing so, opened up new possibilities in human rights law. Along with her husband, human rights activist Ka Hsaw Wa from Burma/Myanmmar, she is the co-founder of EarthRights International, a non-profit group of activists, organizers, and lawyers with expertise in human rights, the environment, and corporate/government accountability. She left EarthRights in 2019 after 25 years to lead the newly founded Equation Campaign, a ten-year funding initiative working to bring about a safe future by enhancing the power of movements to keep oil and gas in the ground.
Tess Berry-Hart is a British playwright and novelist writing for adults, young adults and children. Novels and theatre plays deal with themes such as the European migrant crisis, LGBT rights, mental illness, genetic engineering, and the sex-positive movement. Berry-Hart has also written fiction and verbatim theatre pieces for stage to support human rights campaigns and to raise funds for the refugee crisis.
Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith, known professionally by her former married name Jemima Khan, is an English journalist and screenwriter. She is the founder of Instinct Productions, a television production company. As a journalist, she was an associate editor for the British political and cultural magazine The New Statesman and European editor-at-large for the American magazine Vanity Fair.
Rafika Chawishe is an awarded stage and film actress, and a video art documentary and theater documentary director. She is a dynamic children rights' activist and has worked extensively with unaccompanied refugee minors at the first reception center in Lesvos, Moria, Greece.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections and prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Her clients have included journalist Isa Saharkhiz, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Heshmat Tabarzadi. She has also represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab, which is a punishable offense in Iran. Nasrin Sotoudeh was the subject of Nasrin, a 2020 documentary filmed in secret in Iran about Sotoudeh's "ongoing battles for the rights of women, children and minorities." In 2021, she was named as of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. She was released on a medical furlough in July 2021.
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the United Kingdom, often abbreviated to UASC, are children who are outside their country of origin to seek asylum in the United Kingdom, are separated from parents and relatives, and are not in the care of someone who is responsible for doing so.
Leslee Udwin is a Jewish British filmmaker, actress, director, producer, human rights activist, as well as being the founder and Executive Chair of Think Equal.
The Calais Jungle was a refugee and immigrant encampment in the vicinity of Calais, France, that existed from January 2015 to October 2016. There had been other camps known as "jungles" in previous years, but this particular shanty town drew global media attention during the peak of the European migrant crisis in 2015, when its population grew rapidly. Migrants stayed at the camp while they attempted to enter the United Kingdom, or while they waited for their French asylum claims to be processed.
Calais Action is a direct-giving refugee aid and advocacy group which is part of the UK grassroots aid movement.
Michael Graversen is a Danish documentary filmmaker. He graduated from the National Film and Television School in England and directs documentaries often of an existential or socially-relevant character. His work has won awards and been selected for festivals including IDFA and CPH:DOX.
Vanya Sarah Kewley was an Anglo-French journalist, documentary maker and nurse noted for her 1988 documentary film Tibet: A Case to Answer about the human rights situation in Tibet under Chinese rule. Born in Calcutta to a French mother and a British father, she moved to London to train as a nurse but did not have much enthusiasm about her career and began working as a researcher for Granada Television in 1965. Kewley had her first foreign assignment in 1969 and continued to be sent abroad for assignments and interviewed major world figures of the period. She moved to working on the ITV current affairs series This Week in 1972 and made several documentaries for the programme.
The Stansted 15 are a group of non-violent human rights activists who took action to stop a deportation flight leaving from Stansted Airport, UK on 28 March 2017. The plane, a Titan Airways Boeing 767 was chartered by the UK Home Office to deport 60 migrants to Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Vera Neubauer is a Czech born British experimental filmmaker, animator, feminist activist and educator. She is known for her jarring, provocative and anti establishment approach. Her life's work spans genres, from cinematic short film to television series for children. Neubauer has received two BAFTA Cymru awards.
Accidental Activists is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Mandi Wright. It was written and produced by Kathy Kieliszewski, in conjunction with the Detroit Free Press. The film follows April DeBoer and her partner Jayne Rowse, who went to court and challenged the state of Michigan's adoption law. When the judge told them they would lose their case, he suggested they instead challenge the state's same-sex marriage ban. They consider themselves "accidental activists," meaning they filed lawsuits not to further a cause, but because of the way the bans affected their lives. The documentary premiered on April 2, 2016, at the Freep Film Festival, and went on to screen at several other film fests around the country. It was later shown on Detroit Public TV.
Sarah Mardini, alternative spelling Sara Mardini, is a Syrian former competition swimmer, lifeguard and human rights activist. Fleeing her country in 2015 during the Syrian civil war with her sister, Olympic swimmer Yusra Mardini, they pulled their boat with other refugees towards the Mediterranean coast of Greece, saving themselves and the other passengers. Continuing their journey across the Balkans, they reached Berlin, Germany, the same year. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023, alongside her sister.
