Tully Center

Lamees Dhaif reflects on free speech struggles
By Jayne Jaramillo
October 16, 2012 - 11:57am
Dhaif, the winner of the 2012 Tully Award for Free Speech, accepted her award and spoke in the Hergenhan Auditorium Monday night.

When Lamees Dhaif’s niece tells her she wants people to be anxious to read her every word just like her aunt, Dhaif is often unsure about how to respond.

“Do I tell her a word could cost her her life?” Dhaif, a Bahraini journliast, asked the audience in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium Monday night. “Or should I tell her that a word can distance her from everyone she loves and everything she loves?”

Pakistani journalist won't abandon free speech
By Rebecca Shabad
April 14, 2011 - 11:29pm
As winner of the Tully Center honor, Umar Cheema says 'staying silent was not an option' following his abduction.

He was abducted, stripped naked and tortured for holding the Pakistani government accountable for its commitments. Umar Cheema’s life was put in jeopardy on Sept. 4, 2010, because of his investigative journalism. It also earned him a free speech award Thursday evening at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

“That was the day when my freedom was robbed,” Cheema said in a discussion with Professor Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University. The center gives an annual award to a journalist who has faced a free speech threat.