Human Rights Watch appeals for release of Chinese Nobel laureate

The Chinese government should free the unjustly imprisoned Chinese writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, Human Rights Watch said on Friday, a year after the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award him the Nobel Peace Prize. Human Rights Watch urged all governments represented at the December 2010 Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo to use the anniversary of the announcement of the prize on October 8, 2010, to call for Liu’s freedom and for an end to the illegal persecution of his family and supporters. “The Chinese government is put on notice when presidents and prime ministers publicly express concern about the treatment of people like Liu,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “All those who demonstrated support for him should press for his release and for an end to the persecution of others like him,” Richardson urged. In early October, the Chinese government allowed Liu’s brothers to release information that Liu had been allowed out of prison briefly on September 18 to see family members. They also said that Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, who has been held under legally baseless house arrest since the prize was announced, was allowed to visit Liu Xiaobo in August. Liu, a well-known writer and critic, was arrested on December 8, 2008, for his involvement in drafting “Charter 08,” a pro-democracy and human rights manifesto consciously modelled on Charter 77, the petition drawn up by Czechoslovakian writers and intellectuals in 1989, before the fall of the Communist government. Beijing police held Liu incommunicado and in violation of Chinese law, without access to legal counsel, under a form of detention called “residential surveillance” at an undisclosed location in Beijing until June 23, 2009.