China warns Nobel official: Don't honor dissident

**troung** · 28 Sep 10,, 13:52

China warns Nobel official: Don't honor dissident
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer Tini Tran, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 7 mins ago

BEIJING – The director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute said Tuesday that a high-ranking Chinese official warned him that giving this year's peace prize to a jailed Chinese dissident would harm relations between Norway and China.

China denied Tuesday it was pressuring the Nobel committee, although the Foreign Ministry said dissident Liu Xiaobo would be a poor choice for the peace prize.

Liu was the co-author of a document calling for stronger civil rights and an end to Communist party dominance. He was detained in 2008, and then found guilty of inciting to subvert state power. He was sentenced last December to 11 years in jail.

Geir Lundestad, who is also secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said China's Deputy Foreign Minister Fu Ying, requested a meeting with him when she visited Norway in June.

Fu warned him that giving the Nobel to Liu would be "an unfriendly action that would have negative consequences for the relationship between Norway and China," Lundestad told The Associated Press.

Lundestad said the Nobel committee is independent and ignores pressure to influence its decisions. The peace prize winner will be announced Oct. 8.

Fu, speaking at a news conference in Beijing about a trip by Premier Wen Jiabao to Europe next week, said there is false talk about Chinese pressure every year.

"Every year, you report that China will apply pressure. And it's standard practice around this time of year. You often talk about the Chinese pressure issue," she said.

Before his latest sentence, Liu, a former university professor, also spent 20 months in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square, which ended when the government called in the military — killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of demonstrators.

China routinely uses vaguely worded subversion charges to jail people it considers troublemakers. Liu's 11-year prison sentence is the harshest penalty given for inciting subversion since the crime was introduced in 1997.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a separate news conference that Liu was a poor choice for the prize, but declined to answer questions as to what impact his nomination would have on relations between China and Norway.

"I think that his acts are completely contrary to the aspirations of the Nobel Peace Prize," Jiang said.

Lundestad said he told Fu that the committee is independent of the Norwegian government. He said giving the peace prize to the Dalai Lama in 1989 shows the Nobel committee doesn't respond to pressure from China. Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of trying to undermine its control of Tibet and is sharply critical of anyone who supports him.

"I've had many such meetings, but this is probably at the highest level," Lundestad said. "They consider this an unfriendly action which would have negative consequences for the relationship between Norway and China.

"We, of course, reject any effort to interfere in the deliberations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee."

Liu's wife, Liu Xia, said she thinks China will be able to exert enough pressure to stop her husband from getting the award.

"The Chinese government has money and power. There is nothing they cannot buy," she told AP Television News.

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Associated Press writer Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.
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**kuku** · 28 Sep 10,, 14:50

So this is why they gave obama man the peace prize last year.

**gunnut** · 28 Sep 10,, 22:24

Originally Posted by kuku

So this is why they gave obama man the peace prize last year.

Yeah, the Euro hippies only have the balls to pick on Bush (by giving the "peace" prize to Gore and Obama). I dare them to piss off China.

**MIKEMUN** · 29 Sep 10,, 05:14

He said giving the peace prize to the Dalai Lama in 1989 shows the Nobel committee doesn't respond to pressure from China.

That was before China became a huge power in the world.. I have doubts that the Dalai Lama would get the prize today......

**kuku** · 29 Sep 10,, 08:11

Originally Posted by MIKEMUN

He said giving the peace prize to the Dalai Lama in 1989 shows the Nobel committee doesn't respond to pressure from China.

That was before China became a huge power in the world.. I have doubts that the Dalai Lama would get the prize today......

The swedes dont care, they will not apply pressure on anyone, PRC doesnot really care if they don't, no one in the world cares about such things, nobel peace prize is like amnesty and greenpeace, irritants sure, but none the less unreleavent outside a minority extremist community who will die before they listen to others.

**gunnut** · 29 Sep 10,, 18:36

I want to see someone turning down this prize, citing Arafat, Gore, Obama, Carter, and the UN as a company he doesn't want to join.

Give it to me and watch me turn it down. I could use the $1.4 million, or $800k after the government gets its cut, prize money. But I'll turn that down too out of principle.

**paintgun** · 29 Sep 10,, 19:42

err.. turning down 800k? Hell no

like everyone said, noone cares about Nobel prize anymore, we can blame Justin Bieber and the internet
And that Liu Xiaobo guy will not be an exactly a good choice either

**Pedicabby** · 08 Oct 10,, 14:22

Wife of Chinese dissident

By Bill Schiller Asia Bureau
Ads by Google

BEIJING – Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer and human rights campaigner who was sent to jail for 11 years last December, has become the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

The announcement in Oslo stunned the Chinese government – which had threatened the Nobel Committee and Norway if the prize were to be awarded to Liu – and government censors scrambled Friday to block international broadcasts of the news, including the BBC.

Liu, whose activism dates from the days of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, is best known as the lead author of Charter ’08, a petition that has called for multi-party democracy in China.

The petition enraged the Communist Party government, which keeps a lock-grip on power, and the document eventually led to his jailing.

But in Beijing Friday Liu’s wife, Liu Xia – who had told the Star in an interview this week that she didn’t expect her husband to win – was ecstatic and overwhelmed with joy.

“I feel as though I have been swept over by a hundred different emotions,” she said.

She said her husband did not yet know that he had won – but she would tell him Saturday morning when she has a scheduled monthly visit with him at Jinzhou Prison, in China’s northeast, where he is being held.

“I want to thank the Nobel Committee for bestowing this award on Liu Xiaobo, who remains behind bars,” Liu Xia said. “I want to thank (former Czech President) Vaclav Havel. I want to thank Bishop Desmond Tutu. And I want to that the Dalai Lama,” she said.

All three have been strong supporters of Liu and his candidacy. Tutu and the Dalai Lama are also past winners.

Liu Xia said she had not yet had the opportunity to inform Liu’s father.

“I haven’t been able to get off the phone,” she laughed. But she said she knew that his father would be “very proud.”

Liu’s selection as the Nobel Peace Prize winner leaves the Chinese government in a difficult position.

First, Liu’s win will be a very big boost to the small but courageous human rights movement inside the country who will clearly take strength from his victory.

But any open government criticism of the committee’s selection of Liu as this year’s laureate will only make people more curious about him and spread word of his writings and ideas about democracy for China.

Liu Xia aid she didn’t really care how the government will react, but she said she knew it would be good for China as a nation.

“I think this will hasten China’s entry into the real civilized world more quickly,” she said.

In a statement released Friday afternoon in Beijing, the Foreign Ministry protested against the award, saying it should have gone to promoting international friendship and disarmament.

“Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law,” it said. Awarding the peace prize to Liu, it claimed, was a “blasphemy against the peace prize.”

It repeated that Liu's award would harm bilateral relations between China and Norway, but it offered no details.

**mister unknown** · 08 Oct 10,, 15:46

China is making too big of a deal out of this. It still doesn't see the value of minimizing attention to PR irritants. Its not like this is the first time the Nobel was taken advantage of to annoy people.

**xinhui** · 08 Oct 10,, 18:05

wow.... Congratulations to Liu Xiaobo.

he deserves this win more than his holiness(es) that is for sure.

**gunnut** · 08 Oct 10,, 18:30

Good job Nobel committee. Congratulations to Mr. Liu.

**crooks** · 08 Oct 10,, 19:23

Fantastic news! Well deserved, and should remind the world he's still in prison for his 'crimes' of promoting democracy and civil rights. I feel very sorry for his wife and I'm happy for her as well. God bless them both.

**hanswu25** · 12 Oct 10,, 07:53

China cancels meeting with Norway minister over Nobel

China cancels meeting with Norway minister over Nobel | Reuters

**xinhui** · 12 Oct 10,, 17:17

China cancels meeting with Norway minister over Nobel

China cancels meeting with Norway minister over Nobel | Reuters

Yet another stupid move by the PRC.

**troung** · 12 Oct 10,, 18:14

Nobel winner's wife hopes to collect his award
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writers Tini Tran, Associated Press Writers 1 hr 34 mins ago

BEIJING – The wife of the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo said Tuesday she hopes to travel to Norway to collect the Nobel Peace Prize on his behalf, though for now she can only leave her Beijing home under police escort.

China, meanwhile, claimed the award was an attack on the country and an attempt to change its political system, and retaliated by canceling another set of meetings with the Norwegian government.

In brief interviews by phone, Liu Xia said her husband has started receiving better food since the Oslo-based Nobel committee announced the award last Friday — honoring his more than two decades of advocacy of human rights and peaceful democratic change that started with the demonstrations at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The 54-year-old literary critic is now in the second year of an 11-year prison term after being convicted of inciting subversion over his role in writing an influential 2008 manifesto for political reform.

"He said he hoped I could receive the award on his behalf," Liu Xia told The Associated Press. However, she said she was not optimistic about her chances of leaving since she has been placed under virtual house arrest since the award was announced.

"At this point, I can't even get out of my own house door, let alone the gates of the country," she said, adding that she has not been allowed to meet with friends or journalists and police escort her every time she goes outside her home.

China has been infuriated by the prize, accusing other countries Tuesday of using the award to attack the country and warning that it won't change the communist nation's political course.

"If some people try to change China's political system in this way, and try to stop the Chinese people from moving forward, that is obviously making a mistake," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu. "This is not only disrespect for China's judicial system, but also puts a big question mark on their true intentions."

Asked whether Liu Xiaobo would be allowed to collect the award Dec. 10 in Oslo, Ma would only respond by saying that it is "up to judicial authorities." He avoided saying whether Liu's wife would be allowed to go.

He also refused to answer questions about Liu Xia's treatment, even saying at first that he did not who she was. Liu Xia has not been formally charged with any crime but 'soft detention' is a common tactic used by the Chinese government to intimidate and stifle activists and critics.

Beijing also singled out Norway's government Tuesday, saying that bilateral relations would suffer because of its backing of the award, although the Nobel committee acts independently.

China canceled a second meeting between visiting Norwegian Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen and another senior Chinese official, leading her to scrap the Beijing leg of her trip, Norway's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Raghnild Imerslund said.

By supporting "the wrong decision of the Nobel committee, the Norwegian government has moved to hurt bilateral relations," Ma said. "There is every reason for the Chinese people to be unhappy."

In her interview, Liu Xia said she has learned from her husband's brother that the prison began serving him individually prepared food with rice on Monday rather than a portion of mostly boiled vegetables usually served to all the prisoners, which is typically of poor quality. There was no immediate indication that any other improvements were made to Liu's prison conditions.

Chinese authorities allowed the dissident and his wife a brief, tearful meeting in prison Sunday. But Liu Xia said since her return, guards have been posted outside her apartment and she is not allowed to receive visits from anyone other than her two brothers. Many of her friends, even some outside Beijing, were under house arrest too, she said.

"I am not allowed to meet the press or friends. If I have to do any daily chores, like visiting my mother or buying groceries, I have to go in their (police) car," said Liu Xia, who was using a new cell phone brought to her by a brother — after police rendered her old one unusable. The new phone has since been disconnected as of Tuesday night.

She said she was entirely reliant on the Internet to keep in touch with friends, and had received no explanation for the restrictions nor any indication of when they would be lifted.

Coughing occasionally, the soft-spoken poet sounded tired and said she was running a low fever, which she blamed on a lack of rest. But she remained hopeful that the restrictions would be lifted soon.

"I believe they won't go on like this forever and that there will be positive change," she said. To China, she said: "You're such a big government, you should have the courage to face this reality."

___

Associated Press Writer Gillian Wong and Isolda Morillo contributed to this report.
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