Sunday 27 November 2011

Muslim Writers Awards & The Guardian Student Media Awards

This past week has been a rather big one for me, personally. On Tuesday, I attended the Muslim Writers Awards as I was shortlisted for the Young Journalist of the Year award. I was delighted to have just been shortlisted and it is safe to say that I was shocked when I was named the winner! All in all, it was a really great night; I met some very interesting people, in a fantastic venue (Shakespeare's Globe Theatre) and received some very nice (and kind) feedback from the BBC presenter, Asad Ahmad, who presented me with my award. Some people have asked if they can read the pieces that I submitted for the award (you have to submit 3 articles) so here's a list of the articles and brief descriptions.


  1. Ethnic Profiling as a Policy of Counter-Terrorism is Not Working - This article was written shortly after the attack by Anders Behring Breivik and I wrote about how racial profiling should not be the main focus of our counter-terrorism policies, giving Norway as a primary example. I also write about how Muslims were asked to spy on their communities and mosques (resonant to the times of Vichy) when returning to the UK after a holiday.
  2. Unveiling the 'burqa ban' - This article focusses on Sarkozy's wrongly-named burqa ban (the main object being banned is the niqab) and how he is simply continued the trend of Islamophobia in France in order to try and get the right-wing vote.
  3. Kettled in Parliament Square - This is a very long, detailed report of what I saw, heard, felt and the views of other students on the day that tuition fees were raised to up to £9000. I was in Parliament Square and was reporting live on the day and so experienced the kettling by police and was on of thousands to be without access to basic sanitation as we were not allowed to leave.

On Wednesday night, the next night, I attended the Guardian Student Media Awards as The Student Journals was shortlisted for the Website of the Year category, which was very enthusing mainly because the judging took place before TSJ had even been publishing for a year. We didn't win on the night unfortunately but we did end up being runners up, which I feel is a fantastic achievement for what we have done so far. Hopefully, our continued growth and development will help us do even better next year.

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