China's best-known dissident Liu Xiaobo, who is into his first year of an 11-year prison term for subversion, has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Peace "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it was awarding the prize to Liu Xiaobo for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. "The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace. Such rights are a prerequisite for the 'fraternity between nations' of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will," it said.
In December 8, 2008, Liu Xiaobo was detained in response to his participation with Charter 08, a call for political reform and human rights. He was formally arrested in June 2009 on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power." He was tried in December 2009 and sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights. He had also been an advisor to the student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
It is highly unlikely that the 54-year-old author and former academic knows he has won, with him being at the Jinzhou prison in Liaoning, hundreds of miles from home. However, his wife Liu Xia said, "We have no regrets. All of this has been of our choosing. It will always be so. We'll bear the consequences together. I've known Liu since 1982. I've watched him change little by little year by year, and we know that we have to pay the price under the current situation in China."
Liu was being seen as a favourite to win the Nobel Peace Prize. China had warned Norway not to award Liu saying that the essayist did not qualify for the honour.
The Nobel Peace Committee, however, disregarded China's warning. The committee, in fact, said in the statement, "China's new status must entail increased responsibility. China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights. Article 35 of China's constitution lays down that 'Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration'. In practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China's citizens."
