Winning words

British journalist, Billy Briggs, has been awarded third place in a Europe-wide competition for journalists who write about discrimination issues.

Briggs' article, Pursued by prejudice was published on 19th August 2007 in the newspaper, Scotland on Sunday, and looks at the discrimination faced by Roma people in Scotland today.

The competition is part of the European Commission's For Diversity. Against Discrimination campaign. It ran from January to September 2007 and was open to print and online journalists in all 27 EU member states.

Briggs was awarded third place by a pan-European jury of journalists and experts in the field of diversity and non-discrimination that met in November to decide upon the winners.

First place in the competition was awarded to Maria do Cu Neves from Portugal, whose article looked at the appalling conditions of Portuguese and Polish migrant workers in the Netherlands. Second place was given to Marie-Madeleine Pretie and Adeline Trgout from France for their joint article about discriminatory recruitment practises in France.

A special award to mark the '2007 - European Year of Equal Opportunities for All' was given to Austrian journalist Maria Sterkl.