Peter Gabriel was honoured with the 2008 Ambassador of Conscience (AOC) award in London on Wednesday 10 September, at the launching of Amnesty International's global music and human rights project, the Low Places Tour. The event, held at the Strong Rock Cafe, outlined a preliminary list of 545 Small Places concerts (that could turn in surplus of m events) in 50 countries.
The player and human rights campaigner received the Amnesty International Award from former recipient, U2 guitarist the Edge. Other people to previously obtain the claim are Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Hilda Gonzalez and Mary Robinson. Now in its 6th year, the AOC recognises exceptional individual leadership in the combat to protect and promote human rights.
Following the lunch-time event, The Low Places Tour kicked-off with an evening concert in Los Angeles with Mexican rock band Jaguares.
Artists on the Small Places Tour will use their music to exalt and hire new human rights activists throughout the world. Events will include 11 September concerts in Namibia highlighting human rights in Zimbabwe; and in Estonia with REM where fans will operate in Amnesty International's campaign to release Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi and early political prisoners in Myanmar.
The circuit will culminate on International Human Rights Day on 10 December, with tons of concerts held throughout the world.
The Low Places Tour celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and is divine by Eleanor Roosevelt's promise for "concerted citizen action" in her "Small Places" speech.
The tour stresses the grandness of human rights "at home" - in communities, schools, and workplaces. Roosevelt said, "Where after all do universal human rights begin? In low places close to home. So closely and so little that they can`t be seen on any map of the world."
Peter Gabriel first worked with Amnesty during the Conspiracy of Hope Tour in 1986 and so on 1988's groundbreaking tour Human Rights Now! Gabriel went on to found Witness, a video community campaigning for human rights and more late The Elders, a secret alliance of senior global figures to establish diplomatic assaults on the globe's most intractable problems.
Speaking about his award, Gabriel said, "It was done the tours for Amnesty International that I first met many people about the man engaged in human rights work. It was these people and their extraordinary stories of distress and bravery that I found impossible to pass away from, so the Ambassador of Conscience Award means a big care to me.
"I trust that the Low Places Tour on the sixtieth anniversary of the UDHR will actually help to reward and support this extraordinary document that has been essential to the lives of so many citizens of the world, and to be a like source of aspiration to all those who have part."
The AOC is run by Art for Amnesty. Its founder Bill Shipsey said "Peter has been at the forefront of the battle for human rights and justice around the public for about a fourth of a century and has inspired many others to connect that struggle. He is an Ambassador in the truest sense of the word."
Amnesty International has long enjoyed a successful history of partnering with artists to establish the human rights movement. The organization's global Cabal of Hope and Human Rights concerts with U2, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, and many others, resulted in hundreds of thousands of new activists joining Amnesty International.
Amnesty International's recent Make Some Noise/Instant Karma CD featured 20 artists including Green Day, U2, and Gwen Stefani and raised funds and consciousness to sustain the organization`s efforts to end the kill in Darfur.
Last year's Aliados con Amnesty tour with the band Jaguares inspired almost 75,000 Latino youth to make action to end violence against women. Hundreds of these activists have since become human rights leadership in their communities.
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