Campaign to Free Austin Tice Comes to UH

Kidnapped Reporter’s Parents Will Appear at Panel Discussion April 27

The University of Houston will host a discussion next week to draw attention to the plight of Houstonian Austin Tice, a journalist kidnapped in Syria, and the high-profile campaign for his freedom.

Tice, whose ties to Houston include work as a student reporter at UH, was kidnapped in August 2012 while working as a freelance journalist in Syria. Earlier this year, his parents, Debra and Marc Tice, and Reporters without Borders launched a campaign to raise awareness of Austin's situation and to create an urgency regarding the importance of press freedom.

Debra and Marc Tice will appear on the panel, along with Delphine Halgand, U.S. director of Reporters without Borders. The discussion is set for 4 p.m. Monday, April 27, in the UH Honors College Commons in M.D. Anderson Library. Members of the Honors College faculty, along with the editor of the Cougar, the student newspaper at UH, will also participate.

Following the panel, supporters will have the opportunity to take the "Blindfold Challenge" and sign the petition urging President Obama to do all he can to bring Austin safely home.

A reporter’s notebook from Tice’s days at the student newspaper, then called the Daily Cougar, is included in an exhibit about Tice at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.


WHAT:                            Panel discussion with Debra and Marc Tice, parents of kidnapped journalist Austin Tice,

                                        Delphine Halgand, U.S. director of Reporters without Borders, and faculty from the UH

                                        Honors College. Lindita Camaj, assistant professor of journalism and mass

                                        communication at UH, will moderate.

WHEN:                            4 p.m.-6 p.m. Monday, April 27.

WHERE:                          UH Honors College Commons, inside the M.D. Anderson Library. Parking available at

                                        the Welcome Center garage, near Entrance 1 on Calhoun Road.

MEDIA CONTACT:          Jeannie Kever, 713-743-0778, m-713-504-3769. jekever@uh.edu

For more information, visit http://freeaustintice.rsf.org