Nobel Committee welcomes Liu Xiaobo’s release/ENG

2017. június 27./Phayul.com/TibetPress

eredeti cikk

By Tenzin Monlam

DHARAMSHALA, June 27: The Norwegian Nobel Committee welcomed release of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who is out on medical parole to receive treatment for liver cancer.

“Chinese authorities carry a heavy responsibility if Liu, because of his imprisonment, has been denied necessary medical treatment," the Committee said, “We hope that he will now be released without conditions and offered the best possible treatment for his illness, whether it be in China or abroad."

n accordance with the law if and when the prison clinic is unable treat an inmate's medical condition, the authorities can approve outside treatment. According to Liu's lawyer, the Nobel Laureate was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in May and is on late-stage of the illness.

“He's now being treated at a hospital in Shenyang of Liaoning Province. He has no special plans. He is just receiving medical treatment for his illness," his lawyer Mo Shaoping told AFP.

Expressing his concern over the condition, the lawyer of the 61-year-old author and rights activist stated that being in the late-stage of the cancer makes the treatment difficult.

Upon his release from the prison, many human rights NGOs have expressed their delight over the news and have urged the Chinese government to grant him and his wife to ‘freely seek’ medical treatment wherever they want.

Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch said, “The Chinese government’s culpability for wrongfully imprisoning Liu Xiaobo is deepened by the fact that they released him only when he became gravely ill. The government should immediately allow Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, to seek proper treatment wherever they wish.”

Liu, a former professor of literature at Beijing Normal University, was arrested numerous times – he was jailed for 21 months for his role in 1989 Tiananmen Square protest; for three years in 1996 for his human rights activities; and in 2008 for drafting a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08.

A year later on June 23, 2009, he was arrested on suspicion of ‘alleged agitation activities aimed at subversion of the government’ and on December 9, 2009 he was charged ‘incitement of subversion of state power’. Subsequently, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Since winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, his wife has been kept under house arrest without any contact with outside world. The Amnesty International also calls for the end of ‘shameful and illegal house arrest of Liu Xia’.

Liu is a strong supporter of Tibetan cause and has authored a number of articles and was instrumental in drafting and signing the 12-point suggestions submitted to the Chinese authorities in 2008 on how to resolve the long-standing issue of Tibet.