name	Liu Xiaobo
birth date	December 28, 1955
birth place	Changchun, Jilin, People's Republic of China
death date
occupation	Writer, political commentator, human rights activist
awards
alma mater	Jilin University (吉林大学)Beijing Normal University
spouse	Liu Xia
nationality	Chinese }}

Liu Xiaobo ( pronunciation: ; born 28 December 1955) is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist one-party rule in the People's Republic of China (PRC). He is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner in the PRC.

Liu has served from 2003 to 2007 as President of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, an organization funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization almost entirely funded by the US Congress. He was also the President of NED-funded MinZhuZhongGuo (Democratic China) magazine since the mid-1990s. On 8 December 2008, Liu was detained in response to his participation with the Charter 08 manifesto. He was formally arrested on 23 June 2009, on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power." He was tried on the same charges on 23 December 2009, and sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights on 25 December 2009.

During his fourth prison term, he was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. Liu is the third person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison or detention, after Germany's Carl von Ossietzky (1935) and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi (1991). Liu is also the first person since Ossietzky to be denied the right to have a representative collect the Nobel prize for him.

Early life and works

Liu was born in Changchun, Jilin, in 1955 to an intellectual family. In 1969, during the Down to the Countryside Movement, he was taken by his father to the Horqin Right Front Banner of Inner Mongolia. After he finished middle school in 1974, he was sent to the countryside to work on a farm in Jilin province.

In 1977, Liu was admitted to the Department of Chinese literature at Jilin University. While at Jilin, he created a poetry group known as The Innocent Hearts (Chi Zi Xin) with six of his schoolmates. In 1982, he graduated with B.A. in literature and then admitted as a research student at the Department of Chinese Literature at Beijing Normal University. In 1984, he received an M.A. in literature and became a teacher at the same department. That year, he married Tao Li. His son Liu Tao was born the next year.

In 1986, Liu started his doctoral study program and published his literary critiques at various magazines. He became well known as a "dark horse" for his radical opinions and sharp comments on the official doctrines and establishments to shock both of the literary and ideological circles, thus termed as Liu Xiaobo Shock or Liu Xiaobo Phenomenon. In 1987, his first book, Criticism of the Choice: Dialogues with Li Zehou, was published. This work became a bestseller non-fiction. It comprehensively criticised the Chinese tradition of Confucianism and posed a frank challenge to Li Zehou, a rising ideological star who had a strong influence on young intellectuals in China at the time.

In June 1988, he received Ph.D. in literature. His doctoral thesis, Aesthetic and Human Freedom passed the examination unanimously and was published as his second book.

In the same year he became a lecturer at the same department. He soon became a visiting scholar at several universities, including the University of Oslo, the University of Hawaii, and Columbia University. He returned home as the student movement broke out in Beijing in 1989. This year saw also the publication of his third book, The Fog of Metaphysics, a comprehensive review on Western philosophies. Soon, all of his works were banned.

Political views

In a 1988 interview with Hong Kong's Liberation Monthly (now known as Open Magazine), Liu was asked what it would take for China to realize a true historical transformation. He replied:

(It would take) 300 years of colonialism. In 100 years of colonialism, Hong Kong has changed to what we see today. With China being so big, of course it would require 300 years as a colony for it to be able to transform into how Hong Kong is today. I have my doubts as to whether 300 years would be enough."

Liu admitted in 2006 that the response was extemporaneous, although he did not intend to take it back,as it represented "an extreme expression of his longheld belief". The quote was nonetheless used against him. He has commented, "Even today [in 2006], radical patriotic 'angry youth' still frequently use these words to paint me with 'treason."

Known for his pro-West stance, Liu once stated in an interview: "Modernization means whole-sale westernization, choosing a human life is choosing Western way of life. Difference between Western and Chinese governing system is humane vs in-humane, there's no middle ground... Westernization is not a choice of a nation, but a choice for the human race"

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests he was in the United States but decided to go back to China to join the movement. He was later named as one of the "Four junzis of Tiananmen Square" for persuading students to leave the square saving hundreds of lives.

In his 1996 article titled "Lessons from the Cold War", Liu argues that "The free world led by the US fought almost all regimes that trampled on human rights … The major wars that the US became involved in are all ethically defensible." He has defended U.S. policies in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which he thinks is the fault of the "provocateur" Palestinians.

Liu also published a 2004 article in support of Bush's war on Iraq, titled "Victory to the Anglo-American Freedom Alliance", in which he praised the U.S. led post-cold-war wars as "best examples of how war should be conducted in a modern civilization." and predicted "a free, democratic and peaceful Iraq will emerge." During the 2004 US presidential election, Liu again praised Bush for his war effort against Iraq and condemned Democratic party candidate John Kerry for not sufficiently supporting the US's wars. Meanwhile, he commented on Islamism that, "a cul­ture and (reli­gious) sys­tem that pro­duced this kind of threat (Islamic fundamentalism), must be extremely intol­er­ant and blood-thirsty.” On Israel, he said "with­out America’s pro­tec­tion, the long per­se­cuted Jews who faced exter­mi­na­tion dur­ing World War II, prob­a­bly would again be drowned by the Islamic world's hatred.

Human rights activities

Liu Xiaobo is one of best known human rights activists in China.

On 27 April 1989, Dr. Liu Xiaobo returned home in Beijing and immediately took part in the popular movement to support the student protests. When bloodshed was likely near to happen for the students persistently occupying the Tiananmen (TAM) Square to challenge the government and army enforcing the martial law, he initiated a four men's 3-day hunger strike on 2 June, later referred to as the Tiananmen Four Gentlemen Hunger Strike, to earn the trust from the students, and published a joint statement, June 2 Hunger Strike Declaration. He called on both the government and the students to abandon the ideology of class struggle and to adopt a new kind of political culture for dialogue and compromise. Although it was too late to prevent the massacre from occurring beyond the TAM Square starting from the night of 3 June, he and his colleagues succeeded to negotiate with both of the student leaders and the army commander to let the several thousand students withdraw peacefully and completely from the Square, thus avoiding a possible bloodshed in much larger scale.

On 6 June, Dr. Liu was arrested for his alleged role in the movement, detained in Qincheng Prison, and 3 months later expelled from his university. The governmental media issued numerous publications to condemn him as a “mad dog” and “black hand” to have incited and manipulated the student movement to overthrow the government and socialist. All of his publications were banned, including his fourth book in press, Going Naked Toward God. In Taiwan however, his first and third books were republished with some additions as Criticism of the Choice: Dialogues with Leading Thinker LI Zehou (1989), and Mysteries of Thought and Dreams of Mankind (2 volumes, 1990).

In January 1991, 19 months since his arrest, Dr. Liu Xiaobo was convicted on the offence of "counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement" but exempted from criminal punishment for his “major meritorious action” for having avoided the possibly bloody confrontation at Tiananmen Square. After his release, he was divorced and eventually his ex-wife and son immigrated to the USA. He resumed his writing, mostly on human rights and political issues though he has not been allowed to publish in mainland China. In 1992, he published in Taiwan his first book after his imprisonment, The Monologues of a Doomsday’s Survivor, a controversial memoir with his confessions and political criticism on the popular movement in 1989.

In January 1993, Dr. Liu was invited to visit Australia and the USA for the interviews in a documentary film, Gate of Heavenly Peace. Although many of his friends suggested him to take refuge abroad, he returned China in May of the same year and continued his freelance writing.

On 18 May 1995, the police took Dr. Liu into custody for launching a petition campaign on the eve of the sixth anniversary of June 4 massacre, calling on the government to reassess the event and to initiate political reform. He was held under residential surveillance in the suburbs of Beijing for 9 months. He was released in February 1996 but arrested again on 8 October for an October Tenth Declaration, co-authored by him and another prominent dissident Wang Xizhe, mainly on Taiwan issue that advocated the peaceful unification to oppose Chinese Communist Party's forceful treats toward the island. He was ordered to serve three years of re-education through labor on "disturbing public order” for that statement. In the same year, he married Liu Xia.

After his release on 7 October 1999, Dr. Liu Xiaobo resumed his freelance writing. However, it is reported that the government built a sentry station next to his home and his phone calls and internet connections were tapped.

In 2000, he published 3 different books in three different Chinese territories, in Taiwan A Nation That Lies to Conscience, a 400-paged political criticism; in Hong Kong Selection of Poems by Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia, a 450-paged collection of the poems as correspondences between him and his wife during his imprisonment; and in Mainland The Beauty Offers Me Drug: Literary Dialogues between Wang Shuo and Lao Xia, a 250-paged collection of literary critiques co-authored by a popular young writer and by him under his unknown penname of Lao Xiao. In the same year, Dr. Liu participated in founding the Independent Chinese PEN Centre and was elected to its Board of Directors as well as its President in November 2003, re-elected two years later. In 2007, he did not seek for the re-election of the president but hold his position of the board member until detained by the police in December 2008.

In 2004 when he started to write a Human Rights Report of China at home, his computer, letters and documents were confiscated by the government. He once said, "at Liu Xia (Liu's wife)'s birthday, her best friend brought two bottles of wine to (my home) but was blocked by the police from coming in. I ordered a [birthday] cake and the police also rejected the man who delivered the cake to us. I quarreled with them and the police said, "it is for the sake of your security. It has happened many bomb attacks in these days." Those measures were loosened until 2007, when the Olympic Games were going to be held in China.

In January 2005, following the death of former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang, who showed sympathy to protesters of the student demonstration in 1989, Liu was immediately put under house arrest for two weeks before realizing the death of Zhao. In the same year, he published two more books in the USA, Future of Free China Exists in Civil Society, and Single-Blade Poisonous Sword: Criticism of Chinese Nationalism.

His writing is considered subversive by the Chinese Communist Party, and his name is censored. He has called for multi-party elections, free markets, advocated values of freedom, supported separation of powers and urged the governments to be accountable for its wrongdoings. When not in prison, he has been the subject of government monitoring and put under house arrest during sensitive times.

Liu's human rights work has received international recognition. In 2004, Reporters Without Borders awarded him the Fondation de France Prize as a defender of press freedom.

{|class="wikitable" |+Prison terms for Liu Xiaobo |- !Prison term || Reason ||Result |- |June 1989 – January 1991 || Charged with spreading messages to instigate counterrevolutionary behavior. || Imprisoned in one of China's best-known maximum security prisons, Qincheng Prison, and discharged when he signed a "letter of repentance." |- |May 1995 – January 1996 || Being involved in democracy and human rights movement and voicing publicly the need to redress government's wrongdoings in the student protest of 1989 || Released after being jailed for six months. |- |October 1996 – October 1999 || Charged with disturbing the social order || Jailed in a labor education camp for three years. In 1996, he married Liu Xia. |- |December 2009–2020 || Charged with spreading a message to subvert the country and authority ||Sentenced for 11 years and deprived of all political rights for two years. Currently imprisoned in Jinzhou Prison in Liaoning Province. |}

Charter 08, arrest and trial

Conception and diffusion of the Charter

Liu Xiaobo actively participated in the writing of Charter 08. Then, along with more than three hundred Chinese citizens, he signed Charter 08, a manifesto released on the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10 December 2008), written in the style of the Czechoslovak Charter 77 calling for more freedom of expression, human rights, more democratic elections, for privatizing state enterprises and land and for economic liberalism. As of September 2010, the Charter has collected over 10,000 signatures.

Arrest

Late in the evening of 8 December 2008, two days before the official release of the Charter, Liu Xiaobo was taken away from his home by police. Another scholar and Charter 08 signatory, Zhang Zuhua, was also taken away by police at that time. According to Zhang, the two were detained on suspicion of gathering signatures to the Charter. While Liu was detained, in solitary confinement, he was not allowed to meet with his lawyer or family, though he was allowed to eat lunch with his wife, Liu Xia, and two policemen on New Year's Day 2009. On 23 June 2009, the Beijing procuratorate approved Liu Xiaobo's arrest on charges of "suspicion of inciting subversion of state power," a crime under article 105 of China's Criminal Law. In a Xinhua news release announcing Liu's arrest, the Beijing Public Security Bureau alleged that Liu had incited the subversion of state power and the overturn of the socialist system through methods such as spreading rumors and slander, citing almost verbatim Article 105; the Beijing PSB also noted that Liu had "fully confessed."

Trial

On 1 December 2009, Beijing police transferred Liu's case to the procuratorate for investigation and processing; on 10 December, the procuratorate formally indicted Liu on charges of "inciting subversion of state power" under and sent his lawyers, Shang Baojun and Ding Xikui, the indictment document. He was tried at Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court on 23 December 2009. His wife was not permitted to observe the hearing, although his brother-in-law was present. Diplomats from more than a dozen states – including the U.S., Britain, Canada, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand – were denied access to the court to watch the trial and stood outside the court for its duration. Amongst these included Gregory May, political officer at the U.S. Embassy, and Nicholas Weeks, first secretary of the Swedish Embassy.

This statement, titled "I have no enemies", was later read in the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, which Liu Xiaobo was unable to attend due to imprisonment. On 25 December 2009, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court on charges of "inciting subversion of state power." According to Liu's family and counsel, he plans to appeal the judgment. In the verdict, Charter 08 was named as part of the evidence supporting his conviction. John Pomfret of The Washington Post said Christmas Day was chosen to dump the news because the Chinese government believed Westerners were less likely to take notice on a holiday. In an article published in the South China Morning Post, Liu argued that his verdict violated China's constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations. He argued that charges against him of 'spreading rumours, slandering and in other ways inciting the subversion of the government and overturning the socialist system' were contrived, as he did not fabricate or create false information, nor did he besmirch the good name and character of others by merely expressing a point of view, a value judgment.

International response

Following Liu's detention, a number of individuals, states and organizations across the world called for his immediate release. On 11 December 2008, the U.S. Department of State called for Liu's release; on 22 December 2008, a consortium of scholars, writers, lawyers and human rights advocates called for Liu's release in an open letter; and on 21 January 2009, 300 international writers, including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Ha Jin and Jung Chang, called for Liu's release in a statement put out through PEN. In March 2009 Liu Xiaobo was awarded with the Homo Homini Award by the One World Film Festival, organized by the People in Need foundation, for promoting freedom of speech, democratic principles and human rights.

In December 2009, the European Union and United States both issued formal appeals calling for the unconditional release of Liu Xiaobo.

China, responding to the international calls prior to the verdict, stated that other nations should "respect China's judicial sovereignty and to not do things that will interfere in China's internal affairs."

Responding to the verdict, United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem Pillay expressed concern at the deterioration of political rights in China. German Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly criticized the verdict, stating "despite the great progress in other areas in the expression of views, I regret that the Chinese government still massively restricts press freedom." Canada and Switzerland also condemned the verdict. In Taiwan, Republic of China President Ma Ying-jeou called on Beijing to "tolerate dissent". On 6 January 2010, former Czech president Václav Havel joined with other communist-era dissidents at the Chinese embassy in Prague to present a petition calling for Liu's release. On 22 January 2010, European Association for Chinese Studies sent an open letter to Hu Jintao on behalf of over 800 scholars from 36 countries calling for Liu's release.

On 18 January 2010, Liu was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize by Václav Havel, the 14th Dalai Lama, André Glucksmann, Vartan Gregorian, Mike Moore, Karel Schwarzenberg, Desmond Tutu and Grigory Yavlinsky. China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu stated that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu would be "totally wrong". Geir Lundestad, a secretary of the Nobel Committee, stated the award would not be influenced by Beijing's opposition. On 25 September 2010, The New York Times reported that a petition in support of the Nobel nomination was being circulated in China.

On 14 September 2010, Jón Gnarr, the mayor of Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, met on an unrelated matter with CPC Politburo member Liu Qi and demanded China set the dissident Liu Xiaobo free. Also that September Václav Havel, Dana Němcová and Václav Malý, leaders of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, published an open letter in The International Herald Tribune calling for the award to be given to Liu, while a petition began to circulate soon afterwards.

On 6 October 2010, the non-governmental organization Freedom Now, which serves as international counsel to Liu Xiaobo as retained by his family, publicly released a letter from 30 U.S. Members of Congress to President Barack Obama (the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate), urging him to directly raise both Liu Xiaobo's case and that of fellow imprisoned dissident Gao Zhisheng to Chinese President Hu Jintao at the G-20 Summit in November 2010. Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jiu congratulated Liu Xiaobo on winning the Nobel Prize and request Mainland Chinese authorities to improve their impression to the world about human rights, but not calling for his release from prison.

In 2011 the WorldWideReading is dedicated to Liu Xiaobo. On March 20 there will be readings in more than 60 towns and cities on all continents and broadcast via radio stations. The appeal 'Freedom for Liu Xiaobo' has so far been supported by more than 700 writers from around the world, amongst them the Nobel Prize laureates John M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Herta Müller and Elfriede Jelinek, as well as Breyten Breytenbach, Eliot Weinberger, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Mario Vargas Llosa, Wolf Biermann and Dave Eggers.

Nobel Peace Prize

On 8 October 2010 the Nobel Committee awarded Liu the Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China", saying that Liu had long been front-runner as the recipient of the prize.

All news about the announcement of the award was immediately censored in China at the time of the announcement though later that day became available. Foreign news broadcasters including CNN and the BBC were immediately blocked; heavy censorship was applied to personal communications. The Chinese Foreign Ministry statement denounced the award to Liu Xiaobo, saying that it "runs completely counter to the principle of the award and is also a desecration of the Peace Prize." The Norwegian ambassador to the People's Republic of China was summoned by the Foreign Ministry on 8 October 2010 and was presented with an official complaint against the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu. The Chinese government has called Liu Xiaobo a criminal and stated that he doesn't deserve the prize. Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng criticized Liu by calling him "the accomplice of the Communist regime".

Following the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, celebrations in China were either stopped or curtailed; prominent intellectuals and other dissidents were detained, harassed or put under surveillance; Liu's wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest. She was not allowed to talk to reporters even though no official charges were brought. 65 foreign countries with missions in Norway were all invited to the Nobel Prize ceremony; of these 15 declined, in some cases due to heavy lobbying by China. Those countries were China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Egypt, Sudan, Cuba and Morocco.

China also imposed travel restrictions on known dissidents ahead of the ceremony. A Chinese group announced that its answer to the Nobel Peace Prize, the Confucius Peace Prize, would be awarded to former Taiwan vice-president Lien Chan for the bridge of peace he has been building between Taiwan and the mainland. Lien Chan himself denied any knowledge of the $15,000 prize.

Major publications

Awards and Honors

Hellman-Hammett Grant (1990, 1996)

China Foundation on Democracy Education for Outstanding Democratic Activist(2003)

Fondation de France Prize for defender of press freedom (2004)

Hong Kong Human Rights Press Awards (2004, 2005, 2006)

:*Excellent Award (2004) for an article Corrupted News is not News, published on Open Magazine , January 2004 issue :*Grand Prize (2005) for an article Paradise of the Powerful, Hell of the Vulnerable on Open Magazine, September 2004 issue :*Excellent Award (2006) for The Causes and Ending of Shanwei Bloodshed on Open Magazine, January 2006

Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundation (Australia) Courage of Conscience Award (2007)

People In Need (Czech) Homo Homini Award (2009) PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (2009)

Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars (USA) Free Spirit Award (2009)

German PEN Hermann Kesten Medal (2010) Nobel Peace Prize (2010)

Honorary member of German, American, Portuguese, Czech and Sydney PEN Centers, and Honorary President of Independent Chinese PEN Centre.

See also

Shirin Ebadi

Human rights in the People's Republic of China

List of Chinese dissidents

Weiquan movement

Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

Blocking of Wikipedia by the People's Republic of China

Internet freedom

Freedom of the press

References

External links

Collection of news articles about Liu Xiaobo, via China Digital Times

English language articles and interviews

Film Excerpts of Liu Xiaobo from The Gate of Heavenly Peace

Nobel Peace Prize: Another Exercise in Political Cynicism

The Poet in an Unknown Prison letter by Liu from The New York Review of Books

Unofficial English translation of Liu Xiaobo's 2009 criminal verdict

"Further Questions about Child Slavery in China's Kilns" - the Chinese court supporting Liu Xiaobo's subversion conviction

Jailed Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo Awarded Nobel Peace Prize - video report by Democracy Now!

Barry Sautman & Yan Hairong (15 December 2010). "Do supporters of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo really know what he stands for?", The Guardian

Category:1955 births Category:Charter 08 signatories Category:Chinese democracy activists Category:Chinese anti-communists Category:Chinese dissidents Category:Chinese activists Category:Chinese human rights activists Category:Chinese Nobel laureates Category:Chinese writers Category:People's Republic of China poets Category:Living people Category:Nobel Peace Prize laureates Category:International PEN Category:People from Changchun Category:Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China Category:Jilin University alumni Category:Beijing Normal University alumni

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