Jeff Halper, Director of ICAHD, will be awarded jointly the Kant World Citizen Prize 2009 with Brazilian Bishop Dom Luiz Cappio by the Freiburg Kant Foundation.
The Foundation honours the prize winners of 2009 for their icourageous commitment to human rights and the human dignity of politically and socially marginalized population groups.i
The main purpose of the foundation is the promotion of courageous and independent, critically enlightening publicity work and education to protect peace, democracy and the environment and the promotion of keeping to democratic-constitutional principles in national and international politics.
The Foundation honours Jeff Halperis work ito liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence.”
Dom Cappio (62) has become a national hero in Brazil for his stand against the planned transposition of the Sao Francisco river in Brazil, threatening the environment and the livelihoods of the people living along its banks. His activism included a 23-day hunger strike and a year-long pilgrimage with three other activists along the 2,700 Km Rio Sao Francisco.
Halper, born in Minnesota, USA, is an Israeli and American citizen. Recently, after sailing into Gaza with the two Free Gaza Movement boats which bust the Israeli land and sea blockade of Gaza, he was also given Palestinian citizenship and its passport. He is professor of anthropology.
He was nominated for the Nobel peace Prize 2006.