Seán Binder

Seán Binder (born 1996) is a German human rights activist and certified rescue diver. The son of a refugee father from Vietnam and a German mother, he grew up in Ireland and later studied at universities in Dublin and London. From 2017 to 2018, he volunteered with a Greek humanitarian non-governmental organization on Lesbos island, Greece, assisting refugees arriving in small boats from the nearby Turkish coast.

Along with Syrian refugee and human rights activist Sarah Mardini, Binder was arrested in 2018 and accused by Greek authorities of espionage, aiding illegal immigration and belonging to a criminal organization. These charges have been refuted by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, denouncing the accusations against Binder, Mardini and other humanitarian workers as criminalization of humanitarian acts.

Following more than seven years of repeated legal proceedings, a court on the Greek island of Lesbos ruled on 15 January 2026 that “All defendants are acquitted of the charges” because their aim was “not to commit criminal acts but to provide humanitarian aid.”