British musician Peter Gabriel received a top peace prize from former Nobel prize winners at a ceremony here in Rome on Friday.
The 56-year-old singer and songwriter was awarded the Man of Peace prize for his "great contribution and commitment to peace and human rights", organisers said.
Gabriel was picked for the honour by Nobel peace laureates who meet in Rome every year and open their three-day summit by awarding an international artist.
Former Soviet leader and Nobel peace laureate Mikhail Gorbachev was to have presided over the City Hall ceremony but was forced to pull out at the last minute for health reasons.
He sent a message, however, paying tribute to the former Genesis frontman, who has championed a wide range of human rights and environmental issues over the past 25 years including the anti-apartheid cause.
"Peter Gabriel is known the world over for his activities in favour of peace and human rights. He uses the universal language of music to build understanding between cultures, something which is perhaps more important today than in any other period of our history," Gorbachev said.
Gabriel, who was accompanied by his family, was visibly moved by the award.
"I've received many prizes in my career but this is the one that means the most to me, because the people who are awarding it have set such a high example," he said.
"I'm still naive enough to believe in the goodness and generosity of humankind. I hope we will still be able to discover that magic element buried in the depths of our souls enabling us to trasform information into knowledge, knowledge into wisdom and consequently war into peace," he concluded.
Gabriel was handed the prize by former Polish president Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel in 1983; 1976 winner Maireaad Corrigan Maguire, who campaigned for peace in Northern Ireland; and Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni.
Walesa praised Gabriel, saying that "the world needs more people like him," while Maguire said that "he's a pioneer, a great man of peace who really deserves this award".
Gabriel co-founded Genesis in 1967 while still at school but left the band to go solo in 1975.
His 1980 song Biko about black consciousness leader Steve Biko, who died in a South African prison in 1977 after being beaten by security police, was the first pop song to deal with the effects of apartheid.
In 1988 and 1990, Gabriel was involved in the Nelson Mandela concerts at Wembley, and in 1988 he worked with Amnesty International to set up the Human Rights Now! tour, touring internationally with Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman and Youssou N'Dour.
Four years later, Gabriel founded Witness, an organisation which equips human rights activists around the world with hand-held video cameras and training so they can document abuse cases.
Witness footage has been aired by television stations around the world and is regularly used as evidence by international human rights commissions and peacekeeping agencies.
Gabriel also supports the fight against AIDS and his song Don't Give Up has become an anthem for the cause.
Other artists to have received the Man of Peace award include Bob Geldof and Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens. The Rome Nobel peace summit initiative began seven years ago, the brainchild of the peace-promoting Gorbacev Foundation which was set up by the ex-Soviet president in 1992.
This year, the summit will focus on the issue of atomic weapons. Those attending include Walesa, Maguire, Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, who won the Nobel in 1994; former South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk who shared the 1993 Nobel with Nelson Mandela for his role in the ending of apartheid; and Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian diplomat and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who won in 1995 together with the IAEA. Guests of honour include United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Nobuaki Tanaka; Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who is famous for his anti-nuclear activism; Italy's 1986 Nobel Prizewinner for Medicine, Rita Levi Montalcini and top environmental activist Jeremy Rifkin.
