Liu Xia, the widow of Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Nobel Peace laureate, at the Helsinki International Airport, Finland, en route to Germany, on July 10, 2018. She was first put under unlawful house arrest in October 2010, following the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize for her husband—For nearly eight years, the authorities severely restricted her contact with the outside world. Appeals for her release by the international community intensified following reports of her worsening depression since Liu Xiaobo’s death in July 2017. (File photo: Facebook/Chow Po-chung)
Liu Xiaobo, 61, prominent Chinese intellectual and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, recognized for “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China,” died of liver cancer on July 13, 2017 in Chinese custody. A proponent of China’s peaceful transition to a constitutional democracy, he co-authored Charter 08, a petition for political reform, for which, along with six essays on human rights and social issues, he was sentenced in 2009 to 11 years’ imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power.” In prison, his health deteriorated. The authorities announced in June 2017 that he had been transferred to a hospital for treatment of “late-stage liver cancer” that was diagnosed in May—an announcement that came some two years after cirrhosis of the liver was reportedly diagnosed in 2015. But they denied his subsequent wish to leave China to receive treatment abroad accompanied by his wife, poet Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest since 2010, right after the Nobel Peace Prize was announced.
We hope our expanded special feature on Liu Xiaobo—including news items, analyses of the significance of his life and work, international support for Liu Xia and calls for accountability, and commentaries—will be a useful information resource and help generate more effective action by the international community.
People gathered in front of Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal for a candlelight vigil to demand the release of imprisoned Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo, who is suffering from late-stage liver cancer and has been transferred out of prison to a hospital for treatment.
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