By Tim Saunders on
Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel dedicated a track to a murdered human rights activist at this year’s WOMAD festival in Wiltshire, England, during the weekend.
Gabriel played Biko – a song he wrote about South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko – for Chechen Natalia Estemirova, who was brutally killed earlier this month.
Estemirova worked with Russian human rights organization, as well as Gabriel’s own Witness organization, which empowers people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change. Gabriel hopes to raise £100,000 for Witness – which encourages people to use video and online technology to expose human rights violations in their communities – at the WOMAD Festival.
Steve Biko died in police custody in 1977.
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