Photographers from Agence France-Presse were Saturday awarded the top news and feature prizes at the prestigious Asian Human Rights Awards for outstanding coverage of riots in China's Xinjiang region and acid attack victims in Pakistan. Beijing-based Peter Parks won the main award in the news category for dramatic images of the aftermath of deadly unrest in the north-western Chinese region of Xinjiang in July last year.
Parks' photo of an ethnic Han Chinese mob on the streets of the town of Urumqi armed with sticks, knives and baseball bats appeared on front pages around the world. Parks was also commended for a photo of grieving relatives of victims of the riots, while Beijing-based colleague Frederic Brown received a merit award for coverage of the anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake in May last year.
Bangkok-based photographer Nicolas Asfouri won the top features prize at the 14th annual awards, announced at a ceremony at Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents Club, for work on assignment in Pakistan. The head of the judging panel, former Time magazine chief Asia photographer Robin Moyer, said Asfouri's photographs of a lady disfigured in an acid attack were almost impossible to look at but extraordinarily powerful. Asfouri was also commended for a feature on child labour in Pakistan.
AFP's chief Asia photo editor Eric Baradat said it was the third year running the agency's photographers had scooped the top prizes at the awards. "These awards are welcome recognition for AFP's photographers across the Asian region who frequently put themselves in danger to bring powerful and vital images to the world," said Baradat.
AFP also won a special judges' award for a body of written features from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Among the written features commended by the judges were stories about tribal justice and artists living under Taliban rule by Karachi correspondent Hasan Mansoor, a story on modern slavery by Islamabad correspondent Khurram Shahzad, a piece on the persecution of Afghan singers by Kabul correspondent Sardar Ahmad and a story on election irregularities by Emmanuel Duparcq.
This year's awards ceremony was dedicated to the memory of 32 Filipino journalists massacred in an ambush in the south of the country in November last year, the single largest killing of journalists recorded anywhere in the world. Myrna Reblando, whose husband Alejandro of the Manila Bulletin newspaper was among the dead, accepted a special award in memory of the victims.