The prizes, announced Thursday and set to be awarded in Germany in June, honor the best from over 18,000 weblogs, podcasts and videoblogs throughout the world, with prizes in 11 languages and 17 categories.
Middle East blogs won the popular vote in four of the six main “people’s choice awards.”
Jordanian blogger Osama Romoh, who blogs regularly about various social issues throughout the Middle East, took the people’s choice prize for the world’s best weblog.
“I was surprised when I first saw my name on the list, but I was much more surprised when I found myself having more than 80% of the votes,” he told The Media Line. “Then I realized I had a chance.”
“This is the first time in the history of the competition to have five Arabs win,” he said. “People in Arab countries really want to express themselves, and blogs are popular in Arab countries, so it’s not surprising that so many Arabs would win.”
Jordan’s Queen Rania Al Abdullah used her Twitter account to congratulate Mr Romoh on the award. “So proud Jordanian blogger has won first prize in Bern Blogging competition,” she wrote. “Congrats Osama!”
“I was really shocked — I didn’t know that Queen Rania knows about my blog,” Romoh said. “That was really encouraging and I am so proud. ”
Beyond Jordan, Trad Alasmari, a Saudi Arabian police officer who blogs about various social injustices in the Kingdom, received the people’s choice Reporters Without Borders award for his blog Holom Akhdar.
Egyptian blogger Ibrahim Mohamed, who collects various, unusual tidbits from across the blogosphere, won the Blogwurst award for uncanny “off the wall” approaches to blogging for his weblog Ibda3at.
Syrian webloger Medad received the people’s choice award for the Best Arabic blog for his self-titled weblog on human rights, books, literature and music throughout the Arab world.
Talk Morocco, a multiple author blog that promotes open discussion and debate on a variety of social issues in Morocco and across North Africa, was awarded the jury’s Best English Weblog prize.
“We were quite surprised because we just launched the idea last December and felt like we were still building something,” Hisham Khribchi, co-founder and moderator of the blog told The Media Line. “We didn’t expect to reach the level of maturity to compete with major blogs from around the world.”
