"It was a vintage year for human rights journalism" - Kate Allen
Among the prizes was a brand new award celebrating student journalism.
The coveted awards recognise excellence in human rights reporting and acknowledge journalism’s significant contribution to the public’s awareness and understanding of human rights issues.
The Student award, run in collaboration with NUS and the Daily Mirror, attracted an excellent field of entrants from all four corners of the United Kingdom and was won by Sophie Mei, a fourth-year Philosophy and Social Sciences student from Manchester University and Sheffield resident.
Sophie wrote about trafficking. Afterwards, the Sheffield resident said: “I am absolutely thrilled as it has always been my dream to be recognised as a journalist. This competition is so important too as media has more power than politics these days – so it is a great tool to report on human rights issues.”
The two runners-up were 20-year-old Philip Brook a second-year History student at Cambridge University from Wakefield, and 20-year-old Belfast resident Rory Fenton, a third year Physics student at Imperial College, London.
The awards ceremony included a recorded video message from Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke of the “great importance” of the media in “promoting the cause of democracy and human rights in Burma”, adding that it is “through the media that the rest of the world gets to hear about what we have to undergo in this country.” She urged journalists to “continue to make as many people around the globe know about what we are struggling for in Burma and what that struggle involves.”
Though Aung San Suu Kyi was released from her latest period of house detention last November, approximately 2,200 political prisoners are still imprisoned in Burma and Amnesty is campaigning for their release. Find out more about the situation in Burma.
Journalists at the event also sent tweets to Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev (@presidentaz) demanding the release of Eynulla Fatullayev, an Azerbaijani newspaper editor jailed four years ago on trumped-up charges after publishing articles critical of the government.
Find out more about the Amnesty International Media Awards.