Azeri Journalist Honoured for Courage
Idrak Abbasov receives journalism prize at Index on Censorship ceremony.
Azeri Journalist Honoured for Courage
Idrak Abbasov receives journalism prize at Index on Censorship ceremony.
Azerbaijani journalist Idrak Abbasov remembered colleagues killed or imprisoned for their work when he accepted the Guardian prize for journalism at the Index On Censorship awards ceremony on March 28.
Abbasov, who writes articles and works as a journalism trainer for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, was recognised for his investigative reports on corruption and violence in Azerbaijan.
“In Azerbaijan, where I have come from, telling the truth can cost a journalist their life. In countries such as Azerbaijan, we journalists have to make a choice - and we choose the right to tell the truth,” he said after accepting his prize at the ceremony in London. “I am not complaining. I made a conscious choice when I chose this profession, and I thank fate every day for my work.”
Abbasov singled out the cases of Elmar Huseinov, an editor shot dead in 2005; Avaz Zeynali, a journalist arrested on tax evasion charges widely seen as fabricated, and one of nine reporters currently behind bars in Azerbaijan; and Khadija Ismayilova, a journalist recently subjected to a blackmail campaign.
“Censorship, persecution, limited access to public information, arrests – the situation of the mass media in Azerbaijan is growing worse and their freedom is being curtailed year after year,” he said. “This is the price that my colleagues in Azerbaijan are paying for the right of the Azerbaijani people to know the truth about what is happening in their country. For the sake of this right, we accept that our lives are in danger, as are the lives of our families.
“But the goal is worth it, since the right to truth is worth more than a life without truth.”
Abbasov, who reports for the Ayna and Zerkalo newspapers as well as working as an IWPR trainer and journalist, is one of the founding members of the Azerbaijani Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety.
In the nomination, Index on Censorship noted one incident last September in which Abbasov’s parents and brother were injured when uniformed men entered the family home and partially destroyed it with a bulldozer. (See Azerbaijani Journalist Under Pressure.)
He has already won several prizes for his work, including the Media Key award in 2007. In 2010, he was runner-up in a war reporting contest run by IWPR and the Georgian defence ministry.
Speaking at a reception after the awards ceremony, Abbasov said, “It was IWPR that made me into a journalist. Without IWPR, I would be just average”.
Oliver Bullough is IWPR Caucasus Editor.
