In 1961, Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty, was so enraged that two Portuguese students were jailed for seven years for toasting to freedom during the autocratic regime of António de Oliveira Salazar, that he wrote a letter to The Observer.
It began: "Open your newspapers – any day of the week – and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government.
He had been the recipient of three Amnesty Media Awards: in 1996 for a series of reports on Bosnia/Srebrenica, 1998 for coverage of the Muslim minority Uighurs in north-western China and 2002 for his "moving account of the human cost of the atrocities committed in the Balkan Wars".
[5] The award is open to students in further and higher education, with the prize allowing them to work with sponsors to develop real-world reporting and writing experience for two weeks.
[5] Each year there is a call for submissions focusing on the areas of human rights work encompassed by Amnesty's mission, which is "to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied".
The full criteria are available in the Media Awards section of the Amnesty International UK website,[9] and are detailed on the entry form sent out each year around four months before the ceremony.
The ceremony is held annually in central London and is attended by around 400 guests, including politicians, celebrities, and prominent figures in the UK media industry.