Call to boycott Israel: City considers awarding prize to author
The city of Bochum is suspending an originally planned award to the author and Bachmann Prize winner Sharon Dodua Otoo due to possible support for a boycott of Israel. On November 10, a jury had decided in favor of the German-British author ("Adas Raum") as the next winner of the Peter Weiss Prize, which is endowed with 15,000 euros. The city announced on Tuesday that it had recently become known that she had allegedly supported an organization associated with the BDS.
The matter is being investigated. If the allegations prove to be true, the awarding of the prize to Otoo would be unthinkable, it said. A statement from the author was initially unavailable on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for her publisher S. Fischer pointed out that the author is currently in Australia and may therefore not be able to respond immediately.
BDS stands for "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions". The campaign calls for a boycott of the state of Israel and Israeli products because of its actions against Palestinians. The Bundestag condemned the BDS movement in a resolution on May 17, 2019. Its arguments and methods are anti-Semitic. The NRW state parliament also condemned the campaign as anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli back in 2018 and called on state institutions and local authorities not to support it or groups associated with it. Many municipalities, including Bochum, joined in.
Otoo, who lives in Berlin and was awarded the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2016, appears on the website of the "Artists for Palestine UK" campaign as one of more than 1,500 supporters. The artists who sign up to the campaign pledge to support the Palestinians in a cultural boycott of Israel, for example by refusing professional invitations to the country or funding for their work from the Israeli government. The blog "Ruhrbarone" reported on this after the city announced Otoo as the future prize winner on Monday. The prize was to be awarded on March 10.
The city's decision to suspend the award to Sharon Dodua Ootoo raises questions about her stance on literary boycotts, particularly the BDS movement against Israel due to its conflicts with Palestinians. If her alleged support for the BDS is proven, it could lead to the withdrawal of the Peter Weiss Prize, a literary award valued at 15,000 euros.
Source: www.dpa.com
