Amnesty International invites entries for Media Awards

Categories to enter in the sought-after awards are:

• Television documentary
• Television news
• Radio
• National newspapers
• Periodicals, including weekend national print magazines and supplements
• Photojournalism
• Nations and Regions Award: print or broadcast media in Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and the English regions
• Gaby Rado Memorial Award: for an up-and-coming journalist who has been covering human rights stories for less than five years.

The winners in 2004 were:

• BBC This World, Access to evil, Olenka Frenkiel;
• Channel 4 News report on Equitorial Guinea, Lindsey Hilsum;
• Crossing Continents, BBC Radio 4 – India report on dowry deaths, Lucy Ash;
• The Guardian G2, The people the law forgot, James Meek; Guardian Weekend Magazine, The bitterest betrayal, Vikram Dodd and Tania Branigan;
• Sunday Times Magazine, Ghosts of the apocalypse, Philip Blenkinsop;
• The Herald, Scotland, Asylum-seeking Children's rights, Lorna Martin.
• In addition, the Special Award for Human Rights Journalism Under Threat was won by Kifle Mulat, Editor-in-Chief of Lissane Hizeb (Voice of the People) monthly newspaper and magazine and President of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association.
• Last year's Gaby Rado Memorial Award - which was established with the help of the family, friends and colleagues of the journalist Gaby Rado, who died in Iraq in 2003 - went to James Astill, who had spent three years (almost his entire career) fighting harder than any other foreign journalist to publicise the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, talking to the victims and perpetrators of the humanitarian crisis for a series of articles in the Guardian.

The shortlist also included:

• a report for BBC TV News using a concealed camera to expose racism in Northern Ireland;
• an unprecedented insight into life inside the Guantanamo Bay detention centre broadcast on BBC Radio 4;
• and a series of reports for the Clydebank Post which allowed refugees to tell their stories and helped readers to understand what is happening around the world - and on their own doorstep.

The closing date for this year's entries is Friday, 29 April.

Entries for awards must have been published or transmitted in the UK between the 20th February 2004 and 28th April 2005.

More information about criteria, eligibility, guidelines and entry forms

For the Nations and Regions Awards, these national contacts are available to answer queries:
Scotland – Rosemary Burnett on 0131 466 6200;
Northern Ireland – Patrick Corrigan on 028 9064 3000;
Wales – Eleanor White on 029 2037 5610.