Idrak Abbasov knows all too well about the risks of investigative journalism.

Abbasov, an independent newspaper reporter from Azerbaijan, has been named recipient of the Tully Award for Free Speech following his trials exposing corruption surrounding a Azerbaijan federal oil company. Abbasov will be honored Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse III, where he will also give a speech.

The award, created at the request of the center’s benefactor Joan Tully, has been presented each year since 2008 to a foreign journalist who has faced adverse conditions and/or physical harm to provide his or her country with an honest, unfiltered voice in journalism, said Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech.

“We’ll learn what it’s like to receive these daily threats,” Gutterman said. “It’s hard for us to imagine because we have legal protections and we live in a civil society, so when we bring these journalists in (to tell their story), it’s pretty scary.”

In 2012, Abbasov was beaten by security personnel for videotaping their treatment of protesters of the national oil company SOCAR. During the assault, police officers stood by and watched him fall to the ground as security beat him unconscious. Abbasov was hospitalized with severe injuries, including several broken ribs and head trauma, Gutterman said.

Even after witnessing attacks and threats against his family and children and a home invasion by government forces, Abbasov did the only thing he could do: continued to cover the corruption around him, Gutterman said.

“You have two choices in those situations,” Gutterman said. “You can cower and capitulate or you can keep doing your journalism and keep informing the public.”

Choosing just one single journalist who symbolizes the unjust treatment of free speech is difficult because it is such a common occurrence, said Barbara Fought, former director of the Tully Center.

“It’s really sad that there are so many cases of journalists being beaten or killed,” she said. Still, Fought said, the center must make its selection based on merits.

Judges must determine the recipient based on relevancy, how recent his or her work is, the state of journalism in the country he or she represents and whether or not the issues he or she faced are pertinent to students and aspiring journalists. The most important component, Fought said, is the journalist’s fight for the right of the free press itself and how the journalist faced these hardships.

“I stand in awe of (Abbasov) and what he’s done. If I had three little kids, I don’t know if I would have done that,” she said.

The judging committee, comprised of outside nominators from non-governmental organizations and civil rights organizations, compiles a list of 12 nominees from countries across the globe. From there, the center must be careful about approaching the candidates and asking them to apply for the award, Gutterman said.

“In some cases, being nominated or even associated with an award like this raises questions and puts a target on their chest,” Gutterman said.

A panel of Newhouse professors and students then vets the applicants and chooses a winner, ending months of deliberation. Fought, a member of the panel, said that she believed almost every journalist who applied was perfectly qualified to receive the award.

Fought said that, though dozens of high-quality speakers come to Newhouse every year, she feels the journalists brought in by the Tully Center are especially gripping and moving. Abisov is the newest in a series of speakers who epitomize the struggle to preserve the essence of the First Amendment, she said.

Said Fought: “I don’t know of anyone who is higher as heroes and heroines on my journalism list than (Tully) award winners.”

Published on October 24, 2013 at 1:11 am