Islamabad: A British-Pakistani woman author has been stripped of a prestigious German literary award over her anti-Israel stance, a media report said here on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the German city of Dortmund announced acclaimed novelist Kamila Shamsie as this year's winner of the Nelly Sachs Prize -- named after a Jewish poet -- in honour of her literary work.
But the eight-member jury decided to cancel its original vote from September 6. It also decided not to nominate another winner for 2019, the Geo News reported.
In a statement on Wednesday, the jury said: "Despite prior research, the members of the jury were not aware that the author has been participating in the boycott measures against the Israeli
government for its Palestinian policies since 2014."
"Kamila Shamsie's political positioning to actively participate in the cultural boycott as part of the BDS (Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions) campaign against the Israeli government is clearly in contradiction to the statutory objectives of the award and the spirit of the Nelly Sachs Prize," it said.
Condemning the move, Shamsie said it was "a matter of outrage" to view the BDS movement "as something shameful and unjust".
"It is a matter of great sadness to me that a jury should bow to pressure and withdraw a prize from a writer who is exercising her freedom of conscience and freedom of expression," she said.
The BDS movement was launched in 2005 by Palestinians to generate international pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian human rights.
Shamsie, who was born and grew up in Karachi before moving to London, has written multiple fiction novels, including 'Broken Verses', 'Burnt Shadows' and 'House Fire'.
She won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2018 and was longlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize. The Nelly Sachs Prize is awarded every two years, with the winner receiving a cash prize of USD 16,500.
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