PHUKET journalists Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian have shared a third and a fourth major international award for their coverage of the Rohingya boatpeople pushbacks from Thailand.

The Phuketwan team picked up a share of the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting and a second Award for Excellence in Human Rights Reporting.

The awards make the Phuketwan team Phuket's most highly decorated journalists. Their latest awards came as part of the combined coverage of the issue with the Hong Kong English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post.

The accolades were announced at a gala dinner organised by the Society of Publishers in Asia at the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong on Monday night.

Judges said of the Excellence in Investigative Reporting award: ''An excellent series that uncovered serious government abuses and had a material impact in correcting them. Exclusivity. Strong reporting. Hard-hitting piece with international implications.''

Of the Excellence in Human Rights Reporting award, the judges said: ''Excellent investigative work that exposed serious human rights abuses of oppressed people. Intrepid reporting of a hidden subject. This is a high-caliber series buttressed by solid on-the-ground reporting and great pictures. All militaries are challenging subjects for investigative reporters and Thailand's is no exception. The team clearly went to great lengths to get sources, break news, and provide the details that prodded the government into action.''

Morison and Khun Chutima shared the awards with Maseeh Rahman, Ian Young and Greg Torode in the category for English-language newspapers that circulate primarily in one or two countries, English-language magazines with circulation under 50,000 and English-language websites with five million monthly uniques or below.

Phuketwan broke the story of Thailand's treatment of the Rohingya exclusively online in January 2009 then reported it several days later for the pages of the South China Morning Post to make sure the issue received mainstream international coverage.

Among the other SOPA award winners were journalists from the Financial Times, TIME Asia, Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Straits Times and Reuters. The entries were assessed by 109 high calibre judges worldwide.

Earlier this year, the Phuketwan team also shared the honor of being awarded the prize for Scoop of the Year at the Hong Kong News Awards 2009 and later the general news prize at the Human Rights Press Awards in Hong Kong ''for exposing a secret Thai army policy of detaining Rohingya boatpeople from Myanmar [Burma], towing them to sea and abandoning them.''

The SOPA awards site online says: ''Now in their 12th year, the Society of Publishers in Asia Awards for Editorial Excellence have become the highest accolade for the publishing industry in the region, honoring the very best journalism that it has to offer.

''Whether it is traditional broadsheet, magazine, purely online, newswire or multimedia news, the SOPA Awards pay tribute to the vibrant editorial scene across Asia Pacific and act as a true benchmark from which publishing practitioners can measure themselves.

''Last year's Awards received more than 547 entries from 97 publications and digital publishers from across the region, including Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines and India, as well as new markets such as Korea, Australia, Cambodia and Thailand.''

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand recognised the work of Phuket's Phuketwan journalists in 2009 by carrying a profile of them in the club's magazine.

Morison, who is also editor and publisher of Phuketwan, said: ''We've sparked coverage of a number of vital themes on Phuket and around the Andaman region and we intend to continue reporting the important issues.''