- Title: NORWAY/FILE: Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo wins 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
- Date: 9th October 2010
- Summary: BEIJING, CHINA (FILE - FEBRUARY 2010) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ASIA DEPUTY DIRECTORY, ROSEANN RIFE, SAYING: "You can see a lot of support in China right now for Liu Xiaobo. People are coming out. In fact, other signatories of Charter 08 have come out and said 'We want to share the responsibility for this'. Some senior Communist Party official
- Embargoed: 24th October 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVAF3TL3FKSU2BDMIK7E5KQR2425
- Story Text: The prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, serving an 11-year jail term for "inciting subversion of state power" -- after signing a 2008 manifesto calling for democratic reform in China, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010.
Announcing the award, Chair of the Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland castigated China's record on human rights, saying: "China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as its own provisions concerning political rights."
Jagland said Liu had, "been a strong spokesman for the application of fundamental human rights."
Beijing had anticipated the award might go to Liu and had bitterly criticised such a choice; a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said in September (2010) that Liu's actions were diametrically opposed to the aims of the Nobel prize.
Liu Xiaobo has become a symbol of opposition to China's Communist Party, which has shown no signs of yielding to Western calls to release him and ease restrictions on political critics and human rights activists.
He was detained in 2008, as he and others were preparing to launch the "Charter 08" petition, demanding a democratic remake of the one-party state, which collected thousands of signatures. China did not arrest any other signatories, suggesting it wanted to make an example of Liu but avoid more contentious prosecutions.
The charge of inciting subversion is a broad accusation that covers criticisms of the Communist Party and its policies.
Chinese prosecutors accused Liu of "inciting subversion of state power" by publishing essays on the Internet critical of the ruling Communist Party and helping to organise the "Charter 08" petition, demanding a democratic remake of the one-party state.
His trial in late 2009 drew an outcry at home and abroad over the country's sweeping laws against political opponents.
A former literature professor from the northeast, Liu Xiaobo joined a hunger strike supporting student protesters days before the army crushed a pro-democracy movement centred on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. He tried to avert a bloody stand-off.
He was later jailed for 20 months and then spent three years in a labour re-education camp during the 1990s.
In 2009, Lui was convicted of inciting subversion and sentenced to 11 years in prison At a New Year's Day pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong this year, many of the thousands of protesters carried placards calling for Liu's release.
In February 2010 an appeals court upheld the 11-year prison sentence.
Then, Roseann Rife, Asia Deputy Director of Amnesty International, said there was still a great deal of sympathy for Liu's case that would not be dampened by his unusually harsh sentence.
China's Foreign Ministry warned against giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu, after he was nominated by the U.S. chapter of rights group International Pen.
China warned Norway that relations would be at risk if the Committee gave the prize to a Chinese dissident. It also strongly criticised Oslo after the 1989 prize went to Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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