NEW YORK An American reporter kidnapped in Iraq, a Lebanese television journalist who lost a hand and a leg in a car bombing, and a Chinese journalist twice jailed for her economic and political reporting received Courage in Journalism Awards Tuesday from the International Women's Media Foundation

More than 600 people attended the awards luncheon honoring Jill Carroll who was released on March 30 after 82 days as a hostage, May Chidiac who has undergone 26 operations and was loudly applauded when she walked onstage using a cane, and Gao Yu who spent more than six years in prison and continues to fight against Chinese censorship.

American television journalist Judy Woodruff, the chair of the awards, paid tribute to all journalists working in danger zones from Iraq to Afghanistan — and those who lost their lives trying to report the truth.

She asked everyone to observe a moment of silence in memory of one of the 2002 courage award winners — Russia's crusading investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya who was killed on Oct. 7. She asked every guest to sign a postcard to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to fully investigate her murder.

"We want the world to know that Anna did not stand alone and her murder will not be forgotten," Woodruff said

Since the war in Iraq began in 2003, more than 100 journalists and media employees have been killed, and many more have been injured, Woodruff said. "The war in Iraq is now the deadliest war on record for newspeople," she said

The first Courage in Journalism Award honored one of the survivors — 28-year-old Carroll, a fluent Arabic speaker who had spent three years reporting from Iraq before she was kidnapped in January while freelancing for the Christian Science Monitor. Carroll was in the audience and stood to loud applause, but she is still recovering from the ordeal and asked Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim to accept the award.

"She wants the world to know of her total heartfelt commitment and support for all those who are out reporting today," he said. "Few journalists actually think about courage while reporting. But they're responding with drive to get to the truth... Like all of us, they believe that understanding trumps ignorance."

Chidiac, 43, who works for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., believes a bomb was planted under her car in September 2005 as a result of her criticism of Syria's involvement in Lebanon — and she told the audience at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel that it was meant to eliminate her.

"But I survived, and it is not a secret any more that my survival was a miracle," she said."Moreover, I believe I gave my country a hand to fight with, and a leg to kick all the enemies with, and they are not few

Clearly referring to Syria which withdrew its troops from Lebanon last year after a 29-year occupation, she said, "regimes are trying even after their visible withdrawal from Lebanon, to prevent me, and others, from telling the world the truth about what is happening in my country and to my fellow Lebanese."

Since she returned to work on July 19, Chidiac said "I am still threatened but I kept on doing my job with no fear, ready for any danger I might face."

Gao, 62, won a Courage in Journalism award in 1995 but was unable to receive it because she was sentenced in 1993 to six years in prison for "leaking state secrets" through a pro-Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong. During the 1980s, she became known for her investigative reporting and her writings were instrumental in the 1989 pro-democracy movement.

Gao told the audience after accepting the 2006 courage award that she didn't hear the gunfire in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 1989 because she was arrested that morning.

"A few days later, my report on the surging democratic movement was published in one of Hong Kong's most influential magazines," she said. "As a journalist, I became a 'hostage card' that the Chinese authorities played to show their tough stand to the West."

The foundation presented its lifetime achievement award to renowned Mexican author and journalist Elena Poniatowska, 74, who is best known for "La Noche de Tlatelco," which chronicles the lives and deaths of students protesting police repression prior to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

Since I became a journalist, I have always listened to voices," she said. "While conditions of oppression, misery and social exclusion exist in Latin America, listening to voices will be the only way in which we can become aware of unsuspected and different ways of living