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.