US university honours Daphne Caruana Galizia with Tully Award for Free Speech

Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was assassinated in a car bomb in October, will be honoured posthumously with the 2017 Tully Award for Free Speech, presented by the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University in New York.

The Tully Center for Free Speech was established Newhouse School in 2006. The center promotes and supports free speech through research, education and a series of events, including the annual Tully Award for Free Speech.

For the Tully Award, a panel of outside nominators submitted the names of several journalists and a panel of Newhouse faculty, students and Tully Center staff selected Caruana Galizia from the pool of international journalists who have faced significant threats to their work, including libel lawsuits, imprisonment and harassment.

Caruana Galizia’s husband, Peter Caruana Galizia, and their three sons, Matthew, Andrew and Paul, will attend the award ceremony on April 3 to accept the award and discuss her life, work and legacy.

“It will be our privilege to honour Daphne’s life and legacy with her family,” said Roy Gutterman, Tully Center director. “Daphne gave her life to telling the truth and exposing corruption. The world, our students and our university community can learn a lot about her sacrifice.”

Before her assassination by car bomb in October 2017, Caruana Galizia had weathered numerous threats on her life, physical attacks and harassment, and faced over libel lawsuits at the time of her death.