Benjamin Freeth, MBE (born 23 August 1971) is a White Zimbabwean farmer and human rights activist from the district of Chegutu in Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe.
Together with his father-in-law, Mike Campbell, he rose to international prominence after 2008 for suing the regime of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for violating the rule of law and human rights in Zimbabwe.
After the independence of the Republic of Zimbabwe in 1980, the family relocated to the country where Freeth's father had been hired by the Zimbabwean government to set up a new staff training college for the newly established national army.
[1][2] During the early 1970s, Campbell, a South African Army captain, was involved in the Rhodesian Bush War that pitted Rhodesia's white minority government against Black nationalist guerrillas.
[3] Campbell purchased Mount Carmel from himself after independence (the full title was vested in 1999 when the Zimbabwean government declared no interest in the land).
[7] The tribunal eventually ruled in Freeth and Campbell's favour, finding that the Zimbabwean government's land repossessions were entirely racially based and, therefore, were in violation of the SADC's principles of human rights.
[5] In June 2010, Freeth was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his human rights activism in Zimbabwe.