Amnesty media award winners

ShareThisLast week the annual Media Awards from Amnesty International Canada awarded three Canadian journalists for their human rights reporting.

The awards honour "outstanding reporting on human rights issues" in national Canadian newspapers, tv and radio stations between Oct. 2008 and Sept. 30 2009.

The three award winners (with bios from Amnesty's awards program) are:

David Hayes - Local Alternative Print
"The winner this year in the local alternative print category was David Hayes for “Abandoned In Canada” about children brought into the country and then left without support, printed in Chatelaine magazine. The struggle of children arriving alone, often from war torn countries and adapting to Canadian society is explored in this piece with great care."

Jennifer Hollett - Video/Audio
"In the video/audio category the winner is “The Shministim”, the story of those “conscientious objectors”who refuse to serve in the compulsory military draft in Israel and spend time in jail. It was aired on CBC’s Dispatches 27 April, 2009. Jennifer Hollett explored the stark choices for those who do not conform to the demands of the state because they are un-willing to be part of the violence of an occupation force and are forced to repeatedly pay a penalty."

Paul Koring - National Print
"Paul Koring was the winner of the award this year in national print, for a series of articles in The Globe and Mail about Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian trapped in Sudan living in the Embassy, locked in a struggle to be treated fairly as a Canadian citizen. With dogged determination, Paul Koring extracted details from the government as it became more secretive and dismissive, and kept the issue on the public agenda."