Human rights violations in China, women’s rights and a documentary providing insight into why abuses happen win Amnesty International Canada 2008 Media Awards
29 January 2009
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“Gagged grannies”, victims of discrimination because of hepatitis B and restricted protesters at Beijing Olympic games were all issues covered in a series of articles about China. A comprehensive and nuanced report examined the issue of female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone. And an audio documentary explored how faith and country conflicted for an interrogator at Abu Ghraib. They were all recognized today as winners of Amnesty International Canada’s fourteenth annual Media Awards. These awards are for outstanding reporting about human rights issues in the Canadian media.
Bill Schiller was the winner of the award this year in national print, for a series of articles about human rights in China in The Toronto Star. The protests of angry villagers against corruption, discrimination against hepatitis B victims, the gagging of grannies in advance of the Beijing Olympics and the blocking of a human rights web site, were all examined in pieces covering the extent of repression in China.
“From sleepy south China villages to protest parks during the Beijing Olympics, Bill Schiller has given Canadians a comprehensive view of the range of rights that are being violated in China”, says Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada. “These rights are not abstract principles. They are basic issues that even prompted two feisty grannies to protest eviction to make room for the games.”
In the video/audio category the winner is “God And Country”, a stark and arresting audio documentary aired on CBC’s The Current1 October, 2007. Documentary producer Tina Pittaway interviewed a former interrogator in Abu Ghraib, a devout Christian Joshua Casteel, in Iowa City. The piece takes listeners on Casteel’s personal journey from support for his country through to realization that the brutality of the process and the manipulation of prisoners to extract information were incompatible with his faith.
“This documentary explores the high price of patriotism, how service to country for what seems to the be the right reasons can be transformed and lead to the dark side”, says Neve. “But ‘God and Country’ also reveals the transformative power of his faith that allowed him to break free from this trap.”
The winner this year in the local alternative print category was Susan McClelland for “Cuts Both Ways” printed in Chatelaine, October 2008.
Grappling with a difficult issue, Susan McClelland in this piece explores why most women in Sierra Leone undergo female circumcision and what it means as part of their “rebirth as a woman”. What has been called traumatic, leading to sexual dysfunction and complications in childbirth, is also strongly defended by women. This review of the issue explores cultural values and conceptions of beauty. And it forces readers to examine their own assumptions and address this practice that has special significance for many women in Sierra Leone.
“In a thoughtful way Susan McClelland prompts readers to reflect on their values and understand the impact of others’ actions within their society. As she says, in cases like this it ‘cuts both ways’”, notes Neve.
“Those who have had their rights violated in China, a soldier who rejected the role of interrogator in Iraq because of his faith, and women’s rights in Sierra Leone, are all examined in the winning entries this year,” says Neve. “Protecting human rights is a complex and challenging process tempered by conscience and commitment that was explored with great skill by the winning journalists.”
The annual Media Awards from Amnesty International Canada are made in honour of John Humphrey, a law professor, principal author of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, and founder of the Canadian section of Amnesty International. He died in
March 1995.
The judges for the Amnesty International Canada Media Awards in English this year were: Jeff Sallot, an instructor in journalism at Carleton University and former Parliamentary reporter for The Globe and Mail, Madelaine Drohan, an author and Ottawa correspondent for The Economist, and John Tackaberry, Media Relations for the English section of Amnesty International Canada, a former reporter for Inter Press Service and Pacifica Radio News.
The awards are for national print, local/alternative print and video and audio pieces printed or broadcast in the period from 1 October, 2007 to 30 September 2008.
| For further information, please contact: John Tackaberry Media Relations (613) 744-7667 #236 |
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