Chinese Nobel laureate and political prisoner dies

China’s Nobel peace prize laureate Liu Xiaobo has passed away at the age of 61.   

He died in hospital today after being transferred there from a prison a month ago.   

Liu was serving an 11 year sentence for ‘subversion’.   

The legal bureau in the northeastern city of Shenyang, where he had been hospitalised, confirmed his death in a statement.   

Supporters and foreign governments had urged China to allow him to receive treatment abroad however Chinese authorities insisted that he remain in the country.   

Liu had expressed a wish to seek medical treatment in either the US or Germany to help prolong his life. Doctors from both countries visited him earlier this week and said that he could be moved but staff at the hospital would need to act fast.   

He was imprisoned for the first time in connection with the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. Liu was arrested in 2008 after co-writing Charter 08, a petition that called for the protection of basic human rights and reform of China’s one-party Communist system.   

He was jailed for 11 years.   

In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Laureate Prize while serving his fourth prison sentence. Liu was banned from attending the awards ceremony with a chair left empty in his honour. He is survived by his wife Liu Xia who has been placed under house arrest since the time of her husband being awarded the Nobel award.   
China, (Daily Mail), 
13 July 2017