Ben Keith to Speak at Tackling Transnational Repression against Journalists

Ben Keith is on the expert panel at the Tackling Transnational Repression against Journalists event on May 15th 2025.

This seminar will be bringing together a panel of experts to discuss the shared challenges faced by journalists targeted by authoritarian regimes, including in China and Hong Kong, Iran, Türkiye, and Russia. This event will provide an opportunity for journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders working in different spaces to come together and discuss best practice for jointly tackling this urgent issue. 

This event is sponsored by International Human Rights Advisors, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), and Hong Kong Watch.

Panelists 

• Baroness Kennedy LT KC is one of the country’s most distinguished lawyers. She is a member of the Bar, a King’s Counsel, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and the Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. She was created a life peer in 1997 and has been a strong advocate for social justice and the rule of law in the House of Lords. She has recently been awarded the Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in Scotland. She is the Founder of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford in 2018. In 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Baroness Kennedy evacuated 102 women judges and prosecutors who were on death lists (with their families so the total number was 508) by raising the funds, securing safe houses, chartering planes, and resettling the women around the world. 
  Baroness Kennedy is currently working for the President of Ukraine on war crimes and trying to recover the thousands of children who have been abducted from Ukraine by Russian forces. In October 2024, she was appointed Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom. Baroness Kennedy was a founding member of the Panel and has contributed significantly to its work.
• Ben Keith is a leading barrister specialising in cross-border cases and international human rights law at 5 St Andrews Hill, London. He deals with all aspects of Extradition, Human Rights, Interpol, Financial Crime, and International Law including Sanctions. He represents governments, political and military leaders, High Net Worth individuals, human rights defenders and business leaders in the most sensitive cases.
  Ben is a leading authority on the removal of Interpol Red Notices for worldwide clients. He is the co-founder of International Human Rights Advisors LLP and Red Notice Monitor.
• Kerim Balci is the Director of the Centre for Risale & Hizmet Studies (R&H) at Respect Graduate School in the US. Apart from his administrative role in Respect, he teaches topics like Islamic Logic, Hermeneutics, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s writings and the thought of Fethullah Gulen. Kerim lives in London, where he leads the international human rights work of the Human Rights Solidarity, a British charity on human rights, immigrant rights and integration. He previously served as the editor in chief of Turkish Review, a semi-academic journal on Turkey and Turkish politics, and as a columnist at Zaman and Today’s Zaman dailies in Turkey. 
  Kerim has published pieces in Quartz, Miami Herald, Oasis, The Atlantic, Dawn and others. He has edited a book named Whose War? in Turkish, dealing with the Iraqi War, as well as publishing an album called Ottoman Jerusalem in Photographs and another album with modern photographs of the city. Balci contributes to the work of Dialogue Society with occasional lectures on dialogue in Islam and the philosophy of dialogue.
• Lyndon Shixiang Li is a London-based journalist and human rights activist with a focus on China. He is a political refugee from China and a current Harmsworth Scholar at the Middle Temple. As a journalist, he has reported on UK-China and EU-China relations for Voice of America (VOA), interviewing prominent figures including the UK Prime Minister. Previously, Lyndon served as Outreach Coordinator for Human Rights in China (HRIC) and has been actively involved in campaigns against the death penalty in China and Singapore. His strong advocacy for democracy and human rights has previously led to public condemnation from the Chinese Embassy in London, as reported by the Financial Times. 
• Catherine Philp is one of Britain’s most experienced foreign correspondents, having covered five continents in nearly 20 years at The Times. She has been based in overseas bureaus and reported on conflicts from Afghanistan to Colombia, winning several international press awards. She is judgmental about hummus and quite poor at looting the residences of fallen despots.

Ben Keith is a leading barrister specialising in cross-border cases and international human rights law at 5 St Andrews Hill, London. He deals with all aspects of Extradition, Human Rights, Interpol, Financial Crime, and International Law, including Sanctions. He represents governments, political and military leaders, High Net Worth individuals, human rights defenders and business leaders in the most sensitive cases.

Ben is a leading authority on the removal of Interpol Red Notices for worldwide clients and the co-founder of International Human Rights Advisors.