Aachen authorities have decided to deny Lebanese artist Walid Raad the $ 9,900 Indigo Zachs Literary Prize he was due to receive because of his support for the BDS movement.
The German city of Aachen chose Raad to receive the award for his project "Atlas Group", which deals with the history of the civil war in Lebanon and lasted from 1989 to 2004.
According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, Aachen Mayor Marcel Philippe issued a statement saying: "Based on our research, we assume that the winner of the award is a supporter of BDS and has participated in various measures of cultural boycott of Israel."
When Raad refused to distance himself from the movement, the prize was withdrawn.
Walid Raad, one of the most important contemporary Lebanese artists who dealt with the modern history of Lebanon by reconsidering the forms and templates that help him to write and photograph this history.
The city of Dortmund, Germany, canceled a decision to hand over the "Nelly Sachs" literary award for British novelist of Pakistani descent Camilla Shamsi, for supporting the movement boycott Israel "BDS".
In May, the German parliament passed a motion condemning the boycott of Israel as anti-Semitic and using patterns and methods used by Nazism during the Holocaust. 60 Israeli and Israeli academics criticized the proposal, saying in an open letter that it was part of a trend that seeks to "stigmatize Palestinian human rights supporters with anti-Semitism."
