Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Freiburg Kant Foundation would like to cordially invite you to the third award of the Kant World Citizen prize, which will take place on Saturday, May 9th 2009 from 10.15am - 12.30 pm in the auditorium of the Albert-Ludwig-University in Freiburg. The following reception (until approximately 2.30pm) in the Prometheus Hall should provide the chance for conversation with the prize winners as well as their presenters. The people honored are two personalities from Brasil and Israel, who have worked in an admirable way for the human rights of big parts of the population and for their natural, social and cultural life foundations. They have, therefore, committed themselves to the national and international law and peace order, in a manner consistent with the thought of Immanuel Kant.
The prize winners are:
- Dom Luiz Cappio, bishop of Barra, who fights peacefully, together with the affected part of the population, against the shifting and damming of the most important basis of their life, the Rio Francisco. and
- Jeff Halper, Professor of Anthropology, who fights as a human rights activist against the destruction of houses of Palaestinians and against a policy of blockade of Gaza that withdraws the life-basis of the local people.
We are happy that Professor emeritus Richard Falk from Los Angeles, special reporter of the UN-Human rights committee, will introduce Mr. Jeff Halper, and that Mr. Gernot Erler (Member of Parliament and State Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) will introduce Bishop Dom Luiz Cappio. The guitar duo Pia Grees and Matthias Kläger will provide a matching musical frame.
The Kant Foundation is convinced that the engagement of its prize winners shows in an exemplary way how necessary structural change through politics is for the human rights situation in this planet; this is very much in the spirit of the "Manifesto of Bonn" and Peter Barnes`book "Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons."
By attending the presentation of the prizes you would show your solidarity with the winners and, at the same time, express a common political will for the lasting protection of human rights and common goods, just as Immanuel Kant expressed the obligation to peace and the rule of law in a draft of his "Weltinnenpolitik." We would, therefore, be very happy for your participation.
With friendly and hopeful greetings,
(Berthold Lange, managing board)
P.S. An invitation card with the details of the program will follow in March. Please get back to us until April 4th, 2009 in the address mentioned below.