Lamees Dhaif, an independent Bahraini journalist and human rights activist, will be presented with the Tully Award for Free Speech on Monday night.

This award is presented to a journalist who has continuously endured serious threats to his or her free speech and has risen above seemingly impossible odds. The ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan auditorium.

“We are excited to bring Lamees to Syracuse to hear her stories,” said Roy Gutterman, an associate professor of communications law and journalism and director of the Tully Center for Free Speech. “Our students and community can learn a lot from her and reflect on the role of reporters who take great risks to report the news.”

Planning and preparing for this event has been an extensive processes, he said.

Every year, an international panel of outside journalists, lawyers and other professionals meet as early as January to nominate candidates for the award. After extensive research, interviews and application reviews, the committee, which consists of SU faculty and students, then selects the recipient, he said.

Nominees range from citizens of countries across the globe to citizens in exile for criticizing and covering repressive regimes, Gutterman said.

This year’s possible award recipients were “a very impressive array of candidates,” Gutterman said.

The nominees must reach a certain criteria to be eligible for the award. The journalist must have been heavily active within the past year and worked to be a true journalist; a voice for the people, Gutterman said.

“We look for a story,” Gutterman said. “Someone who really goes through risks and tremendous adversity.”

Dhaif was chosen because she went above and beyond the given criteria, Gutterman said.

Determined to cover her country’s Arab Spring despite widespread government censorship, the Bahraini journalist took to social media to provide full coverage of the anti-government protests taking place in the capital of Manama, according to the Tully Center’s website.

Covering all aspects of the protests, Dhaif created a Twitter, Facebook and her own personal blog to evade censorship and provide the public with information, according to the website.

Reporting in a country with suppressive media censorship, Dhaif has endured numerous legal challenges.

In 2009, the journalist was called into court for “insulting the judiciary” after writing a series of articles exposing the bias against women in Bahraini family courts. The case was dropped, but Dhaif was informed the charges could be revived at any time, according to the website.

In the spring of 2011, Dhaif was again brought to court for criticizing the regime via social media. Again these charges were dropped, but the dangers of her work became very clear when pro-government forces attacked her home with Molotov cocktails, according to the website.

Unrelenting in her criticism of the Bahraini government’s attempts to suppress the protest movement, Dhaif is an inspiration and role model for journalists everywhere, Gutterman said.

Dhaif can show American journalists just how powerful their role can be, he said.

“As American journalists, we can learn a lot because they risk their lives for what we take for granted,” Gutterman said. “The First Amendment gives us so many rights that others across the world don’t have.”

Published on October 15, 2012 at 3:01 am

Contact Erin: erkelly@syr.edu