Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize
Backgrounder: Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese human rights activist. He has been President of the Independent Chinese PEN Center since 2003. He was arrested in December 2008 because of his involvement with Charter 08 and charged in June last year with "inciting subversion of state power." One Christmas Day, he was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights.
Supported by Paul Auster, Ian Buruma, Don DeLillo, Siri Hustvedt, Jonathan Lethem, Philip Roth and Salman Rushdie, the president of PEN American Center, Kwame Anthony Appiah, has nominated Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize stating that:
"Liu's writings express the aspirations of a growing number of China's citizens; the ideas he has articulated in his allegedly subversive writings, ideas that are commonplace in free societies around the world,are shared by a significant cross section of Chinese society. Charter 08, for example, is a testament to an expanding movement for peaceful political reform in China. This document, which Liu co-authored, is a remarkable attempt both to engage China's leadership and to speak to the Chinese public about where China is and needs to go. It is novel in its breadth and in its list of signers — not only dissidents and human rights lawyers, but also prominent political scientists, economists, writers, artists, grassroots activists, farmers, and even government officials."
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the belligerent Chinese leadership has warned the Nobel Committee not to award Liu the prize. In the New York Review of Books blog, Perry Link, who has been providing outstanding coverage of the case, says that while Liu Xiaobo has appealed his sentence, the chances of the verdict being overturned are non-existent.
Addendum: The disappearance of the human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng adds to the frightening news out of China. Please support the campaign to save him before it's too late.
